Driving Madeleine Movie Review

​An uncommonly beautiful and tender film.

Charles, (Dany Boon), a hulk of a man, a taxi driver in Paris who just wants to get his days started and over with as soon as possible. He agrees to pick up a fare of an older woman who’s ninety-two and on her way to her retirement home. This should be fine, he thinks, since she’s agreeing to pay from the moment he hears of the fare. Easy money. “You’ll make a tidy sum.” Says Yolanda at the office, who informs him it will be a lot of driving. He picks up Madeleine in a neighborhood full of gorgeous homes behind gates. He helps her with the one bag she has and before she gets into the cab, she stares at the home she’ll never see again. The melodic, lonely music suggests she’s not to return. Line Renaud, who plays Madeleine, couldn’t have made such a simple moment more touching. When she gets in, she tells him she fell down the stairs. “One bone breaks, and the whole machine goes on the blink.” He’s not big on chatter, but he listens.

She asks Charles if they can take a detour to Vincennes. She would like to see her old neighborhood. As she looks around, she tells him it has gotten ugly and that she doesn’t recognize anything. After telling him her age, she tells him that when the Americans had come to liberate them, she met an American soldier named Matt, and she never forgot him, especially his kiss, which tasted of orange and honey. Time spent with him was the best of her life.

He eventually left, never to return. The camera gets tight on her face when she speaks of passionate occasions. She hints at a gift he left her. It’s not too hard to figure out what that was. His name is Mathieu. She asks Charles again for a detour. She goes to see a plaque on a wall with names of people who died in the war. He was executed by the Nazis. Any memories of his name are now just a marble inscription.

Traffic is making him furious. Madeleine asks Charles, who’s numb at this point but feels for her, what his age is. He says he’s forty-six. She tells him he needs to smile more as it makes you younger. Anger does the opposite. She also reminds him that she’s in no hurry. She speaks to him of her mother, who had worked in the theater, and how much the theater meant to her as she grew up. The lights, the nervous actors running over their lines up to the moment they are to go on stage. It was exciting to her.

Here, the cinematography by Pierre Cottereau is outright gorgeous as Charles drives her through Paris. He chose the perfect streets to give us an idea of how the streets appeared then and still look now. Madeleine gets to know and marries Ray (Jérémie Laheurte), who will regret ever meeting her. I’ll let you discover why. It isn’t pretty, but he got what he had coming to him. Apparently, in the 1950’s women were nothing and had to ask their husbands permission to do anything and for anything. They were “property,” essentially. The strong and intelligent Madeleine would have none of that, so let’s just say that Ray didn’t have much gallop in his step after she was through with him.

Charles can’t believe some of the things he hears but loves getting to know her more with every word she says. He reaches out to his wife Karine (Julie Delarme) to apologize for being such a schmuck lately. A lot of dialogue continues, and the two become closer to one another. At one point, so close that she’s in the front seat! They go to have dinner and he lets loose about himself some, talking about his daughter and wife and the trips they never get to take, except one special trek he took his child on. Charles tells Madeleine that his daughter Betty lit up and that it was magical to see. That was something he held onto because, though he drives so many miles every day, he goes nowhere. They have no memories of family trips and glorious outings to delve into. After dinner, they take a short walk, knowing it’ll be her last taste of freedom. She grabs his arm, and they converse and stroll for a bit longer until the inevitable happens. He must get her to the home. Her time with him and her life of freedom will die as soon as they pull up. You can feel her heartbreak.

As he turns to leave her at her new home, the door shuts as she yells out to him that she has forgotten to pay him. He tells her she can get him when he comes to visit. She blows him a kiss and he does the same. As he pulls away, he gets a bit weepy, continuing to see her face in his rearview mirror.

I would love to tell you a few more extraordinary happenings in the narrative, but I can’t spoil anything for you. Trust me when I say, this will not be the only time you hear of Madeleine and Charles or rather Line Renaud and Dany Boon as well as their director Christian Carion. You will see some things coming, but you won’t mind. The story is unique enough to keep you laser focused on the story and the actors are exceptional to watch.

Opens January 19

Dates and theaters subject to change
Atlanta, GA // Midtown Art Cinema; Merchants Walk Stadium 14
Boston, MA // Landmark Kendall Square
Chicago, IL // Landmark Century Centre Cinema
Denver, CO // Landmark Esquire Theatre
Indianapolis, IN // Living Room Theaters
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN // Lagoon Theater
Philadelphia, PA // Landmark Ritz 5

Phoenix, AZ // Harkins Shea Cinemas 14

Portland, OR // Living Room 6; Salem Cinema
Raleigh-Durham, SC // Silverspot 13 at Chapel Hill
San Diego, CA // Hillcrest Cinemas; The Lot 7
San Francisco, CA // Landmark Opera Plaza; Orinda Theater
Seattle, WA // Crest Cinema Center
Washington, DC // Landmark E Street Cinema; Bethesda Row; Cinema Arts Fairfax
Florida
Coral Gables Art Cinema; Landmark at Merrick Park; Movies of Lake Worth; Movies of Del Ray; The Prado Stadium 12; Silverspot Miami at Met Square
…and more!

Opens January 26

Dates and theaters subject to change
Albuquerque, NM // Guild Cinema
Cincinnati, OH // Mariemont 4, Gateway Film Center
Columbus, OH // Gateway Film Center
Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX // Modern Art Museum of Ft. Worth
Indianapolis, IN // Landmark Keystone Art
Kansas City, KS // Glenwood Arts
Memphis, TN // Ridgeway Cinema Grill
Oklahoma City, OK // Rodeo Cinema
St. Louis, MO // Landmark Plaza Frontenac
Tulsa, OK // Circle Cinema

Opens February 2 

Dates and theaters subject to change
Salt Lake City, UT // Broadway Centre Cinemas; Megaplex @ Jordan Commons
Boise, ID // The Flicks

Sedona, AZ // Mary D. Fisher Theatre