'Bel Ami' lacks chemistry
Bel Ami
(Cert 15, 98 mins, Romance/Drama)
Georges Duroy (Robert Pattinson) harks from lowly stock and arrives in 1890s Paris with barely two francs to rub together.
He is taken under the wing of friend Charles Forestier (Philip Glenister), who lands the ambitious upstart a position on a newspaper and introduces Georges to the elegant drawing rooms where Charles’s wife Madeleine (Uma Thurman) and friends Virginie Walter (Kristin Scott Thomas) and Clotilde de Marelle (Christina Ricci) hold court.
Dressed in a jacket paid out of Charles’s deep pockets, Georges surmises that if he is to gain a foothold in polite society, he must seduce these women and exploit their influence.
So he hops from one bed to the next, securing opulent lodgings as his underhand scheme reaps rewards. Bel Ami is a tepid adaptation of the 19th century novel by Guy de Maupassant about an amoral journalist who clambers up the social ladder in Belle Epoque Paris by sleeping with neglected wives and daughters of the men who wield power. Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod’s handsomely crafted period piece has heaving bosoms and straining britches aplenty, and the tantalising sexual promise of tour-de-force performances from an impressive ensemble cast.
Alas, while Pattinson hones the mournful pout of his vampire from the Twilight saga, he lacks sexual chemistry with any of his co-stars, making a mockery of his anti-hero’s ability to reduce lovers to swooning, gibbering wrecks.
Female cast are hampered with two-dimensional roles that squander their abundant talents.
Bel Ami hopes to arouse passions like Dangerous Liaisons but the lack of palpable eroticism on screen quickly dampens our ardour.
Rating: 3/5.
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