IFFBoston: “Mood Indigo” is Visually Inventive But Lacks Emotional Depth
George Huertas ‘16 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer
While certainly not a bad film, The Green Hornet suffered from a feeling of being too workmanlike. With all the supposed production troubles behind it, most were at least anticipating a hot mess. What the final product was didn’t even amount to that. It was simply… bland.
Gondry wouldn’t make another film for three years, which has now been marked by his return with the film Mood Indigo.
Starring Romain Duris as Colin and Audrey Tautou as Chloe, Mood Indigo, at its most basic, tells the story of how these two fall in love, and how Chloe, during their honeymoon, falls ill. Due to her increasing sickliness (represented, in typically offbeat Gondry fashion, by a flower growing in her lungs), we see the color beginning to seep out of hers and Colin’s respective worlds.
It’s all very, very beautiful, and Gondry certainly knows how to craft his worlds. However, there is very little for the audience to connect with. Tautou and Duris’ performances are serviceable enough, but there is little about their personalities that we as the audience are privy to understand. Aside from their emotional connection to one another, we are given very little to care about when we see them falling in love. And thus, when we see Chloe beginning to die, it’s difficult to feel affected.
While Mood Indigo is a welcome return to Michel Gondry’s visual inventiveness, the film falls short of being emotionally engaging.
Overall Grade: C+