To me, this movie is perfection.

Purely Joyful Movie!

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

George Matthews is a young man who is having a bittersweet affair with a French divorcée in Los Angeles. Waiting to be drafted, he is unable to commit himself to anything or anybody, including his girlfriend Gloria. While trying to raise money to prevent his car from being repossessed, George is attracted to Lola, a Frenchwoman who works in a "model shop". Model Shop is a 1969 film with a cast of actors that are no familiar to me and with a storyline that was super boring. First of all the way this film ends was really weird, the perfomances weren't really that good to begin with and the overall premise of the movie although simple it felt pretty complex at times. (0/10)

... even though it had flaws. Oh, did it have flaws.Despite the stilted, downright on-the-nose dialogue in later scenes between George and Cecille's characters, and some just plain unrealistic bargaining with the repo men, I liked it.Admittedly, it was mostly because of the diegetic music, the POV car shots, and the generally understated tone of the piece. One can tell this was the product of French thinking, without a doubt. The narrative is very reminiscent of the Dogme (I know, I know, not French, leave me alone) school of film making, though the last scene, with its non-diegetic music, violates a rule or two.In the end, however, the film uses the setting, script, and acting (for good or ill) to tell the story without reliance on plot device or other contrivance (the draft notice doesn't count because it was a real fact of life in 1969). If the performances of some of the main actors seem uncompelling, it is because the characters themselves are uncompelling. If George's girlfriend was worth keeping, wouldn't he have kept her? If George was worth keeping, wouldn't Cecille have stayed? The emptiness of their lives is reflected in the alacrity that is shown in escaping from them.The moral of the story is: Why don't we all just have our MG TDs picked up and be done with it?

This is a bad film, French New Wave or not. While I don't love this type of movie, even as an example of the genre, it's bad. French Writer/Director Jacques Demy (who I have loved in several of his other films) makes a mostly aimless film about a guy who has the personality of a paper towel...and it's all set in America. The guy is Gary Lockwood and I felt a bit sorry for him in the movie as he really had very little to do except exist as well as do things that rarely made sense. Emoting in any way certainly was NOT in the cards for this guy!The film begins with Lockwood in bed with his girlfriend (who, coincidentally, has almost no personality either). There's a knock at the door as finance company guys are about to repossess his car. He gets them to agree to wait until the end of the day and Lockwood spends much of the beginning of the film visiting various acquaintances trying to bum money from them. Finally, he finds a soft touch and gets the $100 he needs, but ends up spending it on a woman he just saw as he was driving down the street (Anouk Aimée) who poses for perverts who pay her to strip. And, as a result, he can't pay for the car. I assume this is supposed to be romantic, but the guy just comes off as a leeching idiot. Plus, when he announces that he loves her even though he doesn't even know her, he seems like a real creeper! The film bears some similarities to the famous "Breathless" ("À bout de soufflé"), though unlike Jean-Paul Belmondo (who also plays a low-life), Lockwood's character has no personality and is very, very stiff (in a bad way). At least with Belmondo, he had style and a certain rogue-ish charm. But watching a similar style film with none of the positive qualities of the Godard/Truffaut film, it's a real chore to endure. And, with a plot that seems a bit recycled, the New Wave novelty can't even be respected.A dull and unconvincing film, it didn't even benefit from being bad. If it been terrible and not dull, this would have been an improvement--at least with terrible you can watch it for a laugh!

The time and the setting (late 60's LA) seem among the most authentic of any movie from that period, probably owing to the director who wasn't trying to exploit the culture like so many American directors of the time did. The film transcends nostalgia, and is very worth seeing for the style, authenticity, and music (provided by one of LA's greatest bands, Spirit). The main character played by Gary Lockwood (lots of TV credits over the years) is under great direction by Demy, who helps to make him into an American version of someone out of French New Wave. And into the wave comes Anouk Aimme, whom he meets in an LA "model shop", about as cool and detached a woman as ever graced the screen.