the audience applauded

Simply Perfect

Admirable film.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

I suspect there must be a genre term in French cinema for films in which Depardieu gets the girl by virtue of his charisma. I think he fits his conceit rather well in this kitchen-sink sized romance, an ageing but professional dance hall singer-compère. Cécile De France also fits into this as Marion, the woman who he seduces then spends the rest of the film chasing - initially it all seems a bit odd until we discover that Marion is more damaged than outward appearance might suggest.The problem for me is that I come from the north side of the channel and simply can't process the fluid morality at the heart of the film - the ease with which people slip in and out of each others' beds but remain within the same social orbit. There's nothing in the film to explain or dramatise this situation either. I found myself getting rather waylaid as to the point of it all.Director Xavier Giannoli treats the potentially toe-curling parochial dance-hall sequences with loving reverence - one can see how Alain would be happy to do these inauspicious gigs for the rest of his life. Shame about the baffling drama though. 4/10

'Quand j'étais chanteur' (or 'The Singer') is a lovely, funny, bittersweet film which gives Gérard Depardieu an excellent leading role as cynical, arrogant, washed-up singer Alain Moreau, who sings love tunes for middle-aged lady dancers who adore him. He meanwhile searches for love and finds something akin to it in the person of damaged, deep, prickly Marion (Cécile De France), many years his junior and out of his league.Depardieu, even approaching his sixties, brings a mix of bravado, charm, and vulnerability to the character of Moreau. Sometimes you can see where he is coming from, sometimes you sympathise, sometimes you laugh, sometimes you are irritated - a well rounded character, believable, and just that little bit broken from a lost chance to rebuild a marriage, the idea that he just might be a nicer guy than the ladykiller he has become.With Mathieu Amalric as Bruno, friend, estate agent, adversary, and Christine Citti as Michèle, former wife and backing singer, muse and manager, 'The Singer' is an intimate portrait of where life can take you if you just stop and let it. It does not shy away from poignancy and the ubiquitous happy ending, but on the way it makes its creations real and their problems and preoccupations realistic.The songs, incidentally, are sung by Depardieu and although the lyrics may be lacking in style (certainly in their translation), the delivery and ambiance proves there may well be life in the old dog yet, making it understandable why Moreau has become the obsession and fixation of lonely single, divorced, or widowed women. But under the gloss and the stagecraft is someone just as lonely, just as envious of the passing of time, and this is the ultimate strength of the film, making that obvious.

The French press has been understandably ecstatic about this film. It brings together one of the most distinguished and prolific actors in French cinema with one of its most luminous and vibrant young female talents. But this isn't just a film about stars and authentic-feeling chemistry. It's a film about character and situation. First and foremost it's a film about dance halls and the singers who work in them. Gérard Depardieu is the aging, almost over-the-hill Alain Moreau –"Alain Moreau et son Orchestre". Cécile de France is Marion, a fragile young woman, tough and beautiful on the outside but inside rather shattered, in a new place, Clermont Ferrand, in a new job, selling real estate, with her young son she doesn't get to spend much time with.Marion meets Alain when her new boss, Bruno (Matthieu Amalric) takes her to a dance hall where the singer is performing. Used to women who swoon over him, Alain comes on strong to Marion – but with an edge of reserve and timidity – and she resists, but spends a night with him. Then she resists again, and he pursues. Hunting for a house with her as his agent, Alain continues to see Marion and to woo her. She continues to resist – and to be charmed, to laugh with him, to find in him something she's never seen in a man before. She's outwardly brilliant and hard, but she has horrible phone conversations with her ex and bad encounters with her little boy and alone in her hotel room she dissolves into tears. He's out of style and overweight, with his little Seventies pocketbook and his leather jacket and his dyed hair with highlights; and she calls him names like "Ladies Man" and "Mr. Corny Loser." But beyond that he's a life force and for now at least he's filling a large space in Marion's world. She goes away for a while, he loses his voice for a while, their house-hunting stops and starts, Bruno makes passes at Marion, but she and Alain still continue to connect on some special emotional level, and when they part, after a stadium concert he walks out on, they're both been changed by their time together and are ready, in their different ways, in their different places, for new beginnings.The film's most prominent element is character. It lets us get the feel of what it's like to be in Alain's and Marion's skin. But an equally important element is ambiance, the music and the place, which go together: Giannoli's warm acceptance of the provincial world of Clermont Ferrand is in harmony with the seriousness with which Alain and the film itself take the sometimes corny, sometimes subtly poetic chansons that it's Alain's life's work to deliver, to make people dance. The Singer keeps coming back to Alain's world, his faithful wife-manager Michèle (Christine Citti), to his struggle to survive and maintain his dignity, his respect for the songs. When he sings a love song it has to be real; he has to mean it; he must sing it for himself. If you open yourself to the film's bittersweet mood and it works for you, you will also open yourself to the songs and welcome them into your heart.The Singer is a film that breathes. Its beauty is that it has no easy tragedies or easy resolutions; that things are almost as uncertain between Alain and Marion at the end as they were that first night when she sat in front of him blonde and bright, like a diamond in a red dress. Giannoli is a young director who works with independence and drive. His Les corps impatients was a distinctive and risk-taking film but this one is a leap forward beyond passion and conviction to larger conception, deeper commitment and broader communication. This time Giannoli's done something that can reach a lot of people. Depardieu does his own singing, and his performance as Alain Moreau is one of the best things he's done in a long time – at least over a decade – and a great thing it is. This was a magnificent opportunity for Cécile de France and she's met it with her best and richest performance to date. It's a tribute to both actors work in The Singer that you find it hard to separate either them from their characters. The film ends with a song, "Quand j'étais chanteur," when I was a singer. "Je m'éclatais comme une bête quand j'étais chanteur," I had a hell of a good time when I was a singer. The Singer is one of those films that isn't putting on a show for you: it's inviting you to come in and hang around a while.

In a rather disappointing fortnight, „Quand J'étais Chanteur" was the nicest discovery at the Cannes film festival: a simple story, beautifully told and acted. A middle-aged, overweight and worn-out ballroom singer (Gérard Depardieu, in his best role since "Cyrano de Bergerac" in 1990) falls in love with a tormented woman half his age. And although both know that more than a brief affair is almost impossible, there's is a chemistry between them that has become rare in movies. The unknown director Xavier Giannoli displays a phenomenal sense for atmosphere and is clever enough not to spell everything out. You might actually feel that you can breathe more freely during this movie - and certainly afterwards. Merveilleux!