Best movie of this year hands down!

Simply Perfect

Instant Favorite.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Cesar and Rosalie is the 43-rd film of Romy Schneider and shows her of her matured and very serious theatrical side. Unfortunately, this film is a realistic film. Unfortunately, because the reality is not so great normal-wiser also and seldom gives it a successful happy end. Romy the Rosalie plays is together with Cesar, however she does not feel completely happily in her life situation and suddenly after five years her old dear David appears again, so she knows no more what for her the best is. First she goes to David and than she comes again to Cesar. Cesar himself threatens David but that causes the escape from Rosalie. She burns out with David and leaves Cesar alone. So Cesar tries to make a compromise. David can live with them in the same house! But that is not normal and so Rosalie escape both of them and goes away for one year. Now Cesar and David becomes good friends and live together. After one year Rosalie decides to come back. For me was that a strangely end because it leaves open a lot, but I think that was wanted.

The acting in this movie is excellent--particularly Yves Montand as the middle aged scrap dealer. David is also well-played as are all the other supporting players. But the character of Rosalie was just confusing and flaky and this tended to pull the movie down from time to time. Her character just didn't make sense--acting impulsively and without clear motivation. It was like many of her moves were based on a whim and that made it hard to care about her or see what David or Cesar saw in her (other than her great looks). Yes I could see it would be tough to love two people at the same time but the ways she reacted just defied logic. It's really a shame, as a re-write of the script could have made this a MUCH better film.

Yet another object lesson in how to do relationships. Why is it the French find it so effortless to explore the Human Condition As Entertainment. Why is it they can deal so facilely with pain and heartbreak and still make us smile. Okay, it helps if you have a great leading man, a beautiful leading lady, plus a great writer and a great director but that's still not quite enough and what you really need is something in the water. Jean-Loup Dabadie is still under-appreciated as the multi-talent he is. He thinks nothing of adapting Foreign plays into French (Bill Gibson's 'Two For The See-Saw' became 'Deux pour la balancoir' at Dabadie's hand and was a great hit at the Theatre Montparnasse three or four seasons ago) turning out screenplays like this one and even writing lyrics (he wrote 'Valentin' for Montand's son and in so doing gave Montand a late hit). Here he contributes a virtually perfect screenplay on our old friend the Eternal Triangle theme. This film is so perfect that you get the feeling that on the first day of shooting the Good Fairy turned up on the set and waved her Magic wand blessing the entire project. Love, Desire, Pain, Laughter, if you don't get enough of those at home pull up a chair, slip in the DVD/video and sup your fill. You won't regret a moment of it.

Two opposite men of character quarrel the love of a woman, who doe not manage to choose among both. A harmless intrigue, transcent by Claude Sautet's stage setting, which brews humor and emotion, the dialogues chiselled by Jean-Loup Dabadie and a magnificent trio of actors.