Someone counted, and if the count is correct, ‘Coup de chance‘ (2023) is the 50th feature film directed by Woody Allen. The Bronx-born director, screenwriter and actor is nearing the end of his ninth decade of life and seventh decade of creativity. We had been used to a rate of one premiere per year for many years. The fact that ‘Coup de chance‘ premiered after a two-year hiatus can be attributed to the pandemic, but also to the fact that Allen finds it increasingly difficult to find financing and logistical support. The reasons are linked to episodes from his private life past that have nothing to do with the films he has made or may make, in a world where many of the judges of morality hide behind internet pseudonyms and the number of those who are ready to explain why they don’t want to see his films is higher than those who wait year after year for the ‘new Woody Allen’. His oscillations between America and Europe brought him again with ‘Coup de chance‘ to France, to Paris, the city that once loved Allen immensely and which Allen continues to love and film as often as he can . ‘Midnight in Paris’, his previous film shot entirely in the City of Lights, had been one of those films touched by a magic wand and a hit with audiences and critics. ‘Coup de chance‘ is much more modest in its ambitions, Paris is the background and not a character, but the pleasure of being and filming here is obvious. The story, however, could have taken place anywhere, in any big city, maybe even Manhattan. The film is spoken in French, acted by French actors and made with an almost exclusively French technical team, but it cannot be said that it is a French film.
Fanny Fournier née Moreau (as married women’s names are written on French identity cards) is young, beautiful, remarried to Jean Fournier, a man whose profession is to make people rich even richer. He is rich himself, and the two of them live in the circles of Parisian society, where at social gatherings money and what money can buy is discussed, and in weekends money and what money can buy is again discussed, when the riches do not go to hunt in the forest. Jean doesn’t believe in chance, for him what looks like chance are events planned by people, even if they look like something else. Fanny is bored and tries to convince herself that she loves Jean, until the day she meets again with Alain, a former high school classmate who had been secretly in love with his beautiful colleague. Is the meeting and the liaison that develops the result of chance? What will happen when the worlds of those who believe in chance and the world of the man who creates and manipulates chances to his will will clash?
As often with Woody Allen, we are dealing with a story about love, infidelity, jealousy and their consequences, which can lead to murder. On film number 50 in his filmography, Allen seems to have lost none of his narrative fluency and the sincerity with which his characters reveal themselves to the camera. The cinematography, with many beautiful moments, belongs to Vittorio Storaro, a cinematographer who mixes emotions with colors, winner of three Oscars, who has accompanied Allen in all his films for the last decade. There’s no shortage of humor, and few things are funnier than a mother-in-law who adores her son-in-law more than her daughter, but becomes a fearsome private detective when she suspects something amiss in his behavior. Valérie Lemercier does a wonderful job in this role. Lou de Laâge, Melvil Poupaud and Niels Schneider – all young and talented actors – are the ones who play the roles in the love triangle whose differences can be interpreted sentimentally (relationship of convenience – true love), social (rich – poor) and intellectual (materialistic – spiritual) but especially through the way they relate to risk. The ending resolves the dilemma in a surprising way. For us as viewers, it remains to be seen if the 50th film will be the last or if Woody Allen will have the chance to make more films and we will have the chance to see them.