Trash disguised as art once again with a last jiggle in Paris, featuring a sick story of a mother's desperation to aide her son by getiing him off. With the Pia Zadora/Stacy Keach film "Butterfly", jeers were heard, but with this, because it's Bertolucci, it gets cheers. Some of the worst lipsincking ever is used to make the audience think that Jill Clayburgh is an opera singer, having gone to France after the suicide of her husband (Herman Munster, oops I mean Fred Gwynne), and taking son Matthew Barry with her. When he becomes addicted to heroin, she takes steps to help him, and it's one of the most embarrassing cases of mother love I've ever seen on film.
At nearly two and a half hours, this is one of the most pretentious bores I've ever attempted to try to deal with on film, and as much as I enjoy Clayburgh's work, I couldn't bear her in this. The more the mother tries to get closer to him, the more grasping she becomes, the more he resents het, and the more sickening the film becomes. It's beautiful to look at for sure, but it's stretched out to an excruciating length that serves no purpose. At least Jill had Burt and "Starting Over" in 1979. There's nothing within this film to giving indication as to why it was made. And the more I watched her character on screen, the more I disliked her. She's lucky that her son just turned to drugs rather than following in the footsteps of his father, but then again, there's also a twist to that.
At nearly two and a half hours, this is one of the most pretentious bores I've ever attempted to try to deal with on film, and as much as I enjoy Clayburgh's work, I couldn't bear her in this. The more the mother tries to get closer to him, the more grasping she becomes, the more he resents het, and the more sickening the film becomes. It's beautiful to look at for sure, but it's stretched out to an excruciating length that serves no purpose. At least Jill had Burt and "Starting Over" in 1979. There's nothing within this film to giving indication as to why it was made. And the more I watched her character on screen, the more I disliked her. She's lucky that her son just turned to drugs rather than following in the footsteps of his father, but then again, there's also a twist to that.