NYFF: The sad, strange, incomplete "French Exit"
Monday, October 12, 2020 at 9:40PM by Nathaniel R
Frances Price, the soon to be impoverished widow at the center of French Exit alarms everyone around her and puts them on edge. She will just not cooperate. Neither will Michelle Pfeiffer, the actress playing her, for that matter. Rather than dance around it, let's just state the conundrum up front. When you're watching your favourite actor star in a potential comeback role based on a book you've grown deeply fond of and have already visualized as a movie in your head, the conflicts between expectations and reality and dreams can be impossible to mediate. And disconcerting, too. You've got to watch the movie for the movie but also work through your own external actress-related issues while doing so.
I obsess over Michelle Pfeiffer, okay?! There's no avoiding it and little point not foregrounding it in this review. Complete strangers know this about me...