June 2003
Friday Night : (Vendredi Soir)

Reviewed by Wilson Morales

Friday Night: (Vendredi Soir)
Distributor: Wellspring
Director: Claire Denis
Producer: Bruno Persery
Screenwriters: Claire Denis & Emmanuelle Bernheim
Cast: Valerie Lemercier & Vincent Lindon
Music Composer: Dickon Hinchliffes
Running Time: 90 min
Language: In French with English subtitles

   

Ever have that feeling of wanting to be with someone with no strings attached? No money exchanges or backgrounds discussed. Just a night of passion is all you want. Nothing else is needed. One night stands are common for some folks who go looking for it when they either enter a bar or attend a party. In reality, this may or may not have happened to some, but in Claire Denis’s provocative new film, the possibility of a night of passion with a comfortable stranger makes this film worth seeing.

We first meet Laurie (Lemercier), a Parisian, packing up the last of her possessions as she gets ready to move in with her boyfriend and make that long-lasting commitment she’s avoided for some time. Right before she leaves the apartment for good, she goes out to have dinner with some friends. On her way there, she gets caught in a huge traffic jam due to a transit strike. None of the lights seem to be turning green for her and she’s stuck in the streets for some time. Listening to the radio, she’s encouraged to pick up folks needing a lift. At some point, she comes across Jean (Lindon), a middle-age man walking by and offers him a lift. He seems to know his way around the streets of Paris and offers to drive away from the traffic. As Laurie watches Jean with his sense of comfort and awareness, she feels safe with this strange man. There’s a level of attraction between both individuals and they decide to explore it.

The beauty this film offers is that not much is spoken throughout the film. I guess when one has a night of passion with a stranger, what’s there to be said. Denis has a created an extraordinary job at making the film look realistic with its story and level of plausibility. For Laurie, her reluctance to move with in her boyfriend presents her with this one last “affair”. The camera angles were generous with the actors, not showing the amount of nudity one would expect judging by the storyline. Another remarkable aspect of the film is that the actors themselves are the not usual “drop dead” georgeous leads we come to expect when we think of film like this. This is a good thing as we need to connect with these characters without looking at the outer beauty. If this film was cast with Denzel Washington and Halle Berry; we would go because of the leads and not the story? The music in the film captures the essence of the night as it brings out the emotion the leads so desperately want to release. That, along with the visual art, serves as secondary characters in the film. “Friday Night” is a romantic film filled with poetry and intimacy one may crave for when “the rest is silence”.