Le Grand Rôle

Had Suissa played all of this for laughs—even bittersweet or sardonic laughs—he might have managed more poignancy in his final twist. Instead, he lays it out as strained melodrama, and neither his cast nor his anemic script can support the necessary weight. Freiss' flat, frequent, almost aggressive repetitions of "I love you," combined with his hobby of secretly following and photographing Bejo, make him seem more like a stalker than a lovesick husband. His barely differentiated friends seem to exist mostly to travel around in a black-clad, Reservoir Dogs-style pack, echoing his every move.

Initially, Suissa does seems to have had a pointed purpose in mind—Freiss and his buddies are all Jewish, and some early-film business has them questioning Merchant Of Venice's anti-Semitism, debating Shakespeare's Jewishness, and rushing to temple for the first time in years to play at piety in front of Coyote. But when the cancer plot launches, Suissa jettisons the question of religious identity and mores, along with a potentially interesting side plot in which one of Freiss' buddies keeps his grandmother and his blonde girlfriend apart, preserving a personal illusion that parallels the one Freiss develops for Bejo. What's left is a short and soppy story that Coyote lends some dignity, but not much power. Good Bye Lenin! covered this same ground, but added in social commentary, memorable characters, lively comedy, and a striking observation of a narrow era. By contrast, Le Grand Rôle serves up some pretty thin gruel.