(Ed. Note: This was originally published at Image Facts.)
Kings and Queen is about is about the sort of people who are self-deluded, and what happens when these treasured delusions are no longer conceivable. Adjacent to this theme is a collection of characters that are not only deluded, but are so caught in their idiosyncracies that others have trouble in communicating this fact to them. Desplechin referred to the film as a “comedy” before it came out, but I had trouble finding many traces of humor in the subtext. Its key moments of revelation are not as awkward as they are sad. A man refuses to believe he has a serious illness. A daughter hears from her deceased father what he really thought about her. A musician is given an unsolicited reality check by his director. After all this rug-pulling is said and done, we realize thatKings and Queen is not just another complicated family epic built on the teetering limbs of a recent tragedy. It has something far less palatable up its sleeve.
The relationships between its major figures become clearer as the film rolls on. Nora has it all together. She manages an art gallery, buys beautiful prints for her highly literate father, and juggles her current relationship, a difficult past, and the long-distance raising of her young son Elias. When she discovers that her father is dying of a malignant cancer, Nora decides to ask Ismael, a former lover, if he will adopt her son so that he will have a guardian in the untimely event of her death. Though he is a bit nuts, Elias and Ismael have a much better relationship than any of the other men she brought into his life, so he is her only natural option. Ismael, though charming, is a bit addled, having been recently committed to a psychiatric hospital against his will while struggling to evade a massive tax bill with the help of a Gonzo accountant.
But in the journals of her father to be published posthumously, Nora finds an unexpected entry. His last words to her are bitter, outrageously vitriolic, and obviously true. Likewise, Ismael is eventually put in his place by a straight-talking quartet director. Apparently Ismael’s own genius complex was more annoying than it was earned. For both Nora and Ismael, things aren’t quite what they seem, and the lengthy structure of the film provides ample space for Desplechin to air out the causes and effects of their delusions.
One of the more honest exchanges in the film, finally uninhibited by some set of flawed self-perceptions, happens when Ismael explains to Elias why he would not make a good father. In this sad microcosm for the rest of the film Desplechin ably convinces us that self-delusions aren’t just personal problems, they wreck futures, ruin families, and deny us the honest companionship of those closest to us. (And they are as easy to build up as they are to point out.) In scenes like this Desplechin’s admitted predilection for Woody Allen comes to the surface, as his gently comic dialogue hovers somewhere between meaningful and neurotic.
Desplechin has made a remarkable achievement with this film. His direction moves deftly from classic medium shots to quick verite edits that draw us more closely to his characters. His literate attention to detail draws on some of the better features of classic French filmmaking, as it is neither mood piece nor set piece. Between him and Jaoui, this year has yielded a bumper crop of such balanced and unassuming narratives.
Update: Kings and Queen made it to the top of the Indiewire list for this year. Despite characteristic groaning about the sloppy length of his films, Desplechin earned such come-uppance this year.