Guy Pearce, the gaunt, often unkempt actor who was so riveting in Memento and The Proposition, has found another role that fits his specialty: coming quietly unhinged on screen. Watching Pearce simmer, bubble and boil over in a nicely calibrated performance is far and away the best reason to watch First Snow, the directorial debut by Mark Fergus (writer of Children of Men).
The film is largely a boilerplate noir-ish thriller with a not-so-surprising surprise (and ironic) ending. It does, however, offer bouts of crisp dialogue and a few moments of suspense. The movie also attempts to delve into loftier metaphysical realms — questions about fate and man's control over it — and from that perspective, comes off as rather slight.
Pearce plays Jimmy, a fast-talking slickie-boy who sells flooring and has been trying to put together a new deal (involving vintage Wurlitzer jukeboxes) that will nicely line his pockets. He lives in a modest home in New Mexico with a hottie girlfriend (Piper Perabo, in a window-dressing role). Of course, he has some sordidness in his past.
When Jimmy's car breaks down out in the boonies, he stops by the trailer of a fortune-teller (J.K. Simmons) on a lark. The psychic spazzes out during the session and ends it abruptly. Soon enough, a few things the fortune-teller predicted start to come true, but Jimmy is vexed about the psychic's freak-out and returns to coerce him into giving the full scoop.
Jimmy gets some bad news: His days are numbered; he'll live as long as the first snow. The film then becomes a guessing game about if, when and how Jimmy will die. Foreboding weather reports on the car radio hint of an early winter. All this is a solid enough conceit, but, other than Pearce's descent into desperation and paranoia, it's not all that engrossing.
There are a number of potential culprits for Jimmy's demise: some shaky news about his heart, an embittered salesman he fired and, worst of all, a longtime friend who's just been sprung from jail and thinks Jimmy sold him out. The requisite red herrings ensue.
Fergus, who also wrote the script, has the rhythms and wisecrackery of sales-speak down. William Fichtner, who plays Jimmy's best pal and fellow salesman Ed, is particularly good during a handful of scenes where he tries to chill out his friend, to convince him the psychic thing is nothing but a hustle. Jimmy, he insists, needs to get his mind in the game.
Fergus uses stark contrasts of light to underscore the lead character's state of mind. When that fateful first snow falls, Jimmy retreats to a seedy motel, covers all the windows and occasionally peers through a hole into blinding brightness. First Snow flirts with ponderousness when Simmons the psychic gravely utters lines like, "Your fate lies on whatever road you take — even if you choose to run from it." Does this pass for wisdom? In a more or less conventional film like First Snow, apparently it does.
A frothy French trifle, Avenue Montaigne tells overlapping stories of an alienated concert pianist, an aging (perhaps dying) art collector auctioning off his entire collection, and a soap and stage actress vying for a part in a film by a prestigious American director (played by Sydney Pollack).
The action, such as it is, takes place in a Parisian arts district, the epicenter of which is an intimate bistro where all of the characters encounter a waitress named Jessica (Cécile De France) who's just arrived in Paris. Her wide-eyed naiveté in full bloom, she begins to charm the bejesus out of everyone as she delivers orders and wanders through the highfalutin' worlds of these rich and/or famous folk. De France is kind of like Audrey Tautou in Amélie, but with spiky blond hair and a less mystical air.
If charming French tableaux, pretty artwork, helpings of lush classical piano and beautiful people doing pretentious things is enough to sustain your interest in a movie, Avenue Montaigne might not be a bad bet. But don't look for genuine character development, narrative tension or trenchant statements about humanity or art.
Each of the characters carries around a bit of angst — the pianist, for instance, is fed up with the stuffiness of the classical-music world and wants out, while his wife prods him to stay. We don't ever get the sense, though, that these people are feeling any genuine pain.
I suspect that the film is meant to be a romantic comedy of sorts — a few eccentric fringe characters would seem to suggest it — but, perhaps it's my Americanness: Not once did my lips even curl into a smile. Oh, another reason to see Avenue Montaigne is if you like happy endings. But be careful: This one's so sweet you might get a toothache.
This article appears in Apr 4-10, 2007.