À tout de suite (2005)

This puts me in mind of Techine's Strayed in that there's nothing wrong with it except that it's staked out territory on well-trod ground and doesn't bring anything new to the table. Strayed, though, at least had the advantage of my beloved Emmanuelle Beart. This film has some cheerfully bland blond who I think I last saw in the similarly unnecessary Girls Can't Swim. It coasts for a while on the strength of its crisp, intimate cinematography, but overlength and underinspiration eventually turn it into a chore. There's some material that paints money as a social equalizer (the two girls, both bourgeoisie, note that they never expected to hang out with "guys like this," i.e. crooks), but that attempt at meaning dries up in the film's last half hour, where it struggles towards some kind of epiphany that remains stubbornly out of its reach. You've seen better, trust me.

Grade: C