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Directed by acclaimed theatre directors Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod (aka Cheek by Jowl), Bel Ami is a sumptuous adaptation of Guy de Maupassant’s 1885 novel about an ex-soldier turned journalist who ascends the social ladder, trading one well-connected wife for another.
More social mountaineer than mere climber – after six months working as a clerk in a Parisian newspaper peasant-born Georges Duroy (Robert Pattinson) rises to political editor and becomes a valued member of the incestuous Parisian literati. He is soon the object of affection of three influential women: an unlikely mentor (played by Uma Thurman) who helps him to write his first articles; Clotilde (Christina Ricci) who becomes his passionate mistress, and his boss’s wife (Kristin Scott Thomas), who becomes an unwitting pawn in his ambitious plans.
Based on de Maupassant’s own journalistic career, Bel Ami is both a portrait of Paris and a turbulent sexual merry-go-round in the style of La Ronde and Laclos’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses, complete with amoral characters, heightened sexual economics and the triumph of experience over innocence. With a smart cast and a particularly impressive performance by the underrated Pattinson, first time directors Donnellan and Ormerod have fashioned a highly amusing divertissement.
I have to admit to being pleasantly surprised by Bel Ami, the first film from theatrical veterans Declan Donnellan & Nick Ormerod. It’s a classy little period drama that doesn’t necessarily redefine the genre, but instead stands as a worth addition to the canon. In a way, it seems like a more lavish BBC adaptation, which is quite a compliment when it comes to period drama. I don’t know if actor Robert Pattinson will necessarily find life after Twilight, but I imagine he will find a niché if he choses his next couple of roles as carefully as he chose this one.Head over to his blog, The Movie Blog, and read the rest! Click HERE to continue :)
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Bel Ami might be more overt in its sexual politics, but it does cover a lot of the same thematic ground as Pattinson’s iconic role – such as the notion of damaged relationships between damaged people – and I think it’s a smooth point of transition. I don’t subscribe to the idea that Pattinson is a weak actor, a piece of internet gospel that seems to spread around as part of the overwhelming Twilight hatedom. I don’t think that we have seen the actor given a script that plays to his strengths, and Bel Ami is easily the best project that I have seen him in to date – comfortably ahead of any of the Twilight adaptations, Remember Me or Water for Elephants.
That said, Pattinson still has to convince me that he will make a convincing leading man after the franchise evaporates, but Bel Ami provides relatively strong evidence in his favour. He has more to work with here, and is given a character with significant depth and complexity. Georges Duroy is a character driven by base desires, and inner resentment, and Pattinson manages to express these quite well. I’m not yet entirely sold, but if he can turn out another few performances like this, I think I could be converted.