No filmmaker could pull off adapting Boris Vian’s “unfilmable” novel better than the inventive Michel Gondry. Before the opening titles finish Gondry demonstrates his trademark whimsy and wacky production style; a chef receives ingredients through a television set, sunlight creates guitar strings, an assembly line of people rapidly finishing sentences on typewriters passing by on conveyor belts, and a doorbell that turns into a spider-like creature. You’ll be in for a long film if the opening sequence doesn’t fascinate you. Mood Indigo is an ambitious visual feast with more flair than underlying substance, ultimately becoming overwhelming by the end.

Colin (Romain Duris) is a wealthy inventor who lives in an extravagant Parisian apartment with his chef/lawyer/mentor Nicolas (Omar Sy). He cheerfully shows off his latest invention called a pianocktail, a piano that translates musical notes into a different cocktail flavors. But Colin’s mood quickly changes upon realizing the one thing missing from his life is love. Suddenly he decides his solitude is absolutely dreadful and demands to fall in love. So he sets out to accomplish just that.

At a dinner party, Colin instantly falls in love with a “girl like a Duke Ellington tune” named Chloe, played by the dashing Audrey Tautou. After wooing her by dancing the biglemoi, a jazzy dance in which the dancer’s legs stretch to impossible proportions, Colin decides to take her hand in marriage. But shortly after they do, Chloe begins to have fainting spells caused by a flower growing inside her lungs.

The amount of creative visual flair found in Mood Indigo is second to none. Gondry creates a fantasy dream world where underground forests exist along with a pair of shoes that have a mind of their own and shadows that can chase after you. One of the most memorable scenes is when the couple happily float above Paris in a cloud ride operated by a large crane (a literal expression of the phrase ‘floating on a cloud’). Gondry also shows off his technical skills. In an impressive honeymoon sequence, he implements a split-screen to divide the same shot where it’s raining on one side and sunny on the other. The contrast between the weather signifies change as the second half of Mood Indigo gets a little dark. Well, dark for a Gondry film anyways. Gloom visually settles in when the color of everything fades to monochrome and walls literally shrink to close in on characters.

While it’s a pleasure to marvel at these visuals, they eventually grow tiresome by the end of the two-hour film (note: Gondry did re-edit the film for the US release which cuts out about 30 minutes). That’s because almost every scene has something animating, morphing, or twitching. It simply becomes overstimulating. Also, the stop-motion animation adds charm and visual flair but rarely offers meaningful substance to the scene.

The biggest issue with Mood Indigo is not being able to balance the wildly imaginative cinematography with meaningful storytelling. Sometimes the film is weird just to be weird—a feat that Gondry has mastered — resulting in more fluff than essential moments. It’s hard to put all the blame on Gondry (he did adapt the story from a highly experimental novel), but none of the emotional notes were felt between the two leads despite solid performances from both. Mood Indigo has breathtaking imagery and heaps of whimsical charm, but is often exhausting at the same time.

Premiering as the Closing Night film at the Cannes film festival last year was Claude Miller’s final film (before passing away) Thérèse. Adapted from a novel of the same name, Thérèse is a slow-burner period piece about a newlywed woman who attempts to break free from her marriage and social pressures. The film’s linear structure, no-surprises narrative, and emotionless characters make the whole production feel rather mundane; save for some beautiful cinematography that provides the only stimulation found in the film.

One of the first conversations between the soon to be married couple Thérèse Larrorque (Audrey Tautou) and Bernard Desqueyroux (Gilles Lellouche) is about how much land they will own together, which speaks volumes about their relationship. Both of their families own thousands of acres of pine trees and calculate that once they get married they will own 11,000 acres of land. Even as a young teenager Thérèse was well aware that her future marriage with Bernard would be more for the family’s interest of land ownership rather than actual love. The two acknowledge the business first/love last marriage from the beginning and both are completely content with going through with it anyways.

Contrasting their relationship in just about every way is the love-fueled relationship between Thérèse’s sister-in-law Anne de la Trave (Anaïs Demoustier) and Jean Azevedo (Stanley Weber), a man that the family does not deem fit for Anne. Thérèse envies the love between the two and promises to side with Anne despite the family’s disapproval. But when Thérèse finally meets Jean to discuss Anne, she finds out that he has no intention to marry her and develops a minor infatuation for him.

Thérèse does a credible job of using self-evident visuals to symbolize its narrative. Perhaps the most obvious case of this is how their land of pines represents their marriage, so when it eventually catches on fire it signifies the destruction of their relationship. Or when Thérèse is so disgusted in herself that she puts her hand up to block the reflection because she cannot bear to look back at her own image. Storms are often on the horizon, suggesting that the danger is just around the corner.

Although Audrey Tautou’s role calls for her to be completely free of passion and emotions to the people around her, it does not change the fact that it is frustrating as a viewer to also be shunned of her motivations. For the time period her character is considered free-spirited and full of thoughts, yet we are not privy to what she is thinking. She is as lifeless as the dead animals brought back from the hunting expeditions throughout the film. And while all of this is done on purpose, the most difficult thing to do is care about a character who does not seem to care about anything themselves.

The biggest disappointment in Thérèse is the straightforward approach of the narrative structure. Every step along the way is foreshadowed long before it happens, leaving no surprises or curves to spice up the lethargic narrative when the inevitable does occur. While some of the plot points are made abundantly clear, like how oppressive society was at the time; other subplots dissolve without much explanation, such as Thérèse’s subtle attraction to Jean and subsequent falling out with her best friend Anne. The ornate production design and the outstanding use of cinematography recreate the time period and stand among the most noteworthy characteristics of Thérèse, but they are not enough to overcome all the drawbacks.

Thérèse trailer