Firstly a plea to location scouts - the exterior of London's Swiss Re a.k.a. "Gherkin" building is already a cliché - if you don't want audiences to groan, choose something else to represent the City of London from now on. Author Peter Mayle's love affair with the gorgeous Provence countryside is well known and the best thing about this movie is Ridley Scott's filming of it. As for everything else - the deepest thing that will be experienced in this movie is the dry swimming pool into which Russell Crowe's character falls. For the first 40 minutes or so Scott attempts to compensate for the thin script by slapstick and boorish behaviour on the part of Crowe, but it doesn't succeed. For the rest of the film the attempt is made by putting the two beautiful actresses Marion Cotillard and Abbie Cornish to the fore, but so unconvincingly that it doesn't work either. A film that probably sounded good in theory, but conceived and executed badly.
Review of A Good Year
