Generally
speaking, it is a bad idea to emulate self-destructive movie stars. However, the sexpot of Mouthe, the coldest
town in France, does not have a lot of role models to follow. Unfortunately, she meets the same fate as her
idol Marilyn Monroe in Gérald Hustache-Mathieu’s slyly inventive Nobody Else But You (a.k.a. Poupoupidou, trailer here), which is now screening
in New York.
David
Rousseau is a series mystery author with a severe case of grinder-outer’s
block. In Mouthe on a time-wasting errand (the sort of excuse editors refer to
as “waxing the cat”), Rousseau is intrigued by a tragic local death. The body of weathergirl and aspiring actress
Candice Lecoeur was found in the no man’s land between the French and Swiss
borders. As a result, her death will not
be properly investigated, unless he does it himself.
As
he reconstructs Lecoeur’s life, largely by reading her diaries, Rousseau begins
to fall for the woman who honestly believed she was the reincarnation of Norma
Jean. Likewise, Lecoeur develops
affectionate feelings for the hack writer turned sleuth. Yes, she serves as the real time spectral
narrator of the film, just one of the many potential pitfalls Hustache-Mathieu nimbly
skirts.
NEBY obviously
suggests comparisons with Otto Preminger’s Laura,
but Lecoeur really is dead. Even so, it
really is a love story between Rousseau and Lecoeur, distinguished by if-only
regrets rather than romantic courtship.
Yet somehow Hustache-Mathieu manages to keep the tone relatively light
and buoyant, which is a neat trick indeed.
He also fully develops the Marilyn Monroe connection in a spirit similar
to Kenneth Branagh’s Dead Again and
clearly demarcates each of the many flashback sequences.
Looking
like Michael Fassbender’s dissolute older brother, Jean-Paul Rouve is scruffily
charismatic as Rousseau, but he has an undeniably intelligent screen presence. Appropriately not exactly a drop-dead beauty,
Sophie Quinton still exudes unbridled sex appeal as Lecoeur, while conveying
all her inner insecurities. Rarely
together on-screen, they still develop their not-relationship quite
convincingly.
