Rating of
2/4
Liv Ullmann speaks French, no?
Snake Sugarbaker - wrote on 12/11/09
A modern adaptation of Chekhov’s play-within-a-play The Seagull, La Petit Lili is a film-within-a-film (within a film) which involves a successful actress, her famous director husband, and her budding filmmaker son on holiday in the country. The son represents what the elders once did, namely anti-establishment (at least in the realm of cinema), creating oblique films that are the antithesis to the mainstream rubbish his mother and stepfather produce. He’s not convinced his stepfather was once like him until he absconds with the son’s girlfriend.
The second half becomes more interesting and, truly, the film is among the highest in its genre but, nonetheless, Claude Miller’s (The Little Thief) film feels too much like Miller imitating Woody Allen imitating Ingmar Bergman imitating Chekhov rather than simply a film based on Chekhov.
