Coup de chance

4/18/2024

If I had to come up with one word to describe writer-director Woody Allen’s latest film, it would have to be “inconsequential.” This flat, uninspired slog about the trophy wife (Lou de Laâge) of an overly possessive well-to-do Parisian businessman (Melvil Poupaud) who has an affair after a chance meeting with one of her old classmates (Niels Schneider) is close to a career low point for the famed auteur. The picture’s wooden characters routinely spout trite, at times laughable dialogue peppered with nonchalant references about privileged upscale living and obvious, shallow observations about art, poetry and culture. Then, of course, there are the tired discussions about the role that luck plays in our lives that have now been incorporated into the scripts in nearly all of Allen’s 50 films.