Press Release MPI Press Release: Coup de Chance (2023) (Blu-ray) (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

​ ​ ​ "WOODY ALLEN'S BEST FILM IN A DECADE" - ROLLING STONE COUP DE CHANCE Comes to Blu-ray & DVD on 5/21 ​ Official Synopsis: ​ Fanny (Lou de Laâge) and Jean (Melvil Poupaud) look like the ideal married couple – they’re both professionally accomplished, they live in a gorgeous apartment in an exclusive neighborhood of Paris, and they seem to be in love just as much as they were when they first met. But when Fanny accidentally bumps into Alain (Niels Schneider), a former high school classmate, she’s swept off her feet. They soon see each other again and get closer and closer… ​ COUP DE CHANCE Written and Directed by: Woody Allen Produced by: Letty Aronson, Erika Aronson Starring: Lou De Laâge (International Emmy winner, The Mad Women’s Ball), Valérie Lemercier (The Visitors, Aline), Melvil Poupaud (One Fine Morning), Niels Schneider (Heartbeats, How I Killed My Mother) Language: French Genre: Romantic Thriller Run Time: 93 minutes Distributor: MPI Media Group ​ What The Critics Are Saying... "a tight and effective French-language thriller." WWW.ROGEREBERT.COM "... absorbing, thrilling, and cheekily satisfying.... [Allen] has made what is easily his best movie since “Blue Jasmine” (10 years ago), maybe since “Match Point” (18 years ago)." - VARIETY "Coup de Chance is the 50th film Allen has directed and one of his best." - THE AUSTRALIAN "Has more spirit and joie de vivre than anything Allen has done in a while." - SCREEN DAILY "Woody Allen’s best film in a decade." - ROLLING STONE​ # # # ​

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https://www.amazon.com/Coup-de-Chan...82-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

 

[Robert Harris]

Huge kudos to MPI for stepping up to the plate and releasing Mr. Allen’s latest! I’m told that it’s a wonderful film.

 

[Jeffrey Wells]

A tautly engaging film and, yes, Allen’s best in several years. If only the script didn’t have that familiar first-draft feeling, and if only the ending had been more satisfying.

Woody’s “Coup de Chance” Is A Low-Flame Thing, Cool and Menacing – Hollywood Elsewhere

 

[titch]

I received the blu-ray today and - of course - we had a champagne summer Scandinavian premiere! I've now seen all of Woody Allen's fifty(!) films and it's been a long time since I can say I enjoyed one. But Coup de Chance is enjoyable. It's all familiar: from the white Windsor Light Condensed over a black background titles, super wealthy, neurotic, very well-dressed people and their infidelities - the big difference, is that this one is in French. The heroine reminds me of one-time muse Scarlett Johansson and the mother reminds me a bit of Diane Keaton in Manhattan Murder Mystery.

The jazz score is great, the editing is masterful, the filming by Vittorio Storaro just so, all washed over with autumnal hues, as is his wont. And because it's all in French, the people speaking don't sound quite so over-familiar and banal as they did in Woody Allen's last five or six films. The blu-ray picture and sound are top-notch. I didn't see anything untoward, while projecting.

In my opinion, Woody Allen has made about 15 great films. He's now 88 years old - two years older than Ridley Scott, three years older than Francis Ford Coppola. Coup de Chance isn't one of his classics, but if this one is his last, then it's an honourable way to bow out.

 

[lark144]

I received the blu-ray today and - of course - we had a champagne summer Scandinavian premiere! I've now seen all of Woody Allen's fifty(!) films and it's been a long time since I can say I enjoyed one. But Coup de Chance is enjoyable. It's all familiar: from the white Windsor Light Condensed over a black background titles, super wealthy, neurotic, very well-dressed people and their infidelities - the big difference, is that this one is in French. The heroine reminds me of one-time muse Scarlett Johansson and the mother reminds me a bit of Diane Keaton in Manhattan Murder Mystery.

The jazz score is great, the editing is masterful, the filming by Vittorio Storaro just so, all washed over with autumnal hues, as is his wont. And because it's all in French, the people speaking don't sound quite so over-familiar and banal as they did in Woody Allen's last five or six films. The blu-ray picture and sound are top-notch. I didn't see anything untoward, while projecting.

In my opinion, Woody Allen has made about 15 great films. He's now 88 years old - two years older than Ridley Scott, three years older than Francis Ford Coppola. Coup de Chance isn't one of his classics, but if this one is his last, then it's an honourable way to bow out.
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Looks like beautiful weather for a premiere.

I received it the other day as well. I'll probably give it a spin tomorrow.

Woody Allen had a great run from the mid-70's to the mid-80's, a bunch of masterpieces, but even the ones that seemed like failures back in the day--ANOTHER WOMAN & SEPTEMBER, for instance--hold up remarkably well; though I admit his last few films have been rough going. Partially, all those talented young actors imitating Woody's delivery is hard to take; because back in the day, Woody's voice was genuinely funny and original, whereas today, we get an imitation of an imitation. Still, I'm eternally hopeful.

This one looks better; both plot and character-wise, as well as it's in French. As Gene Kelly says in AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, they may say the same things the folks said back home, but it sounds better in French.

 

[titch]

I received it the other day as well. I'll probably give it a spin tomorrow.

Woody Allen had a great run from the mid-70's to the mid-80's, a bunch of masterpieces, but even the ones that seemed like failures back in the day--ANOTHER WOMAN & SEPTEMBER, for instance--hold up remarkably well; though I admit his last few films have been rough going. Partially, all those talented young actors imitating Woody's delivery is hard to take; because back in the day, Woody's voice was genuinely funny and original, whereas today, we get an imitation of an imitation. Still, I'm eternally hopeful.

This one looks better; both plot and character-wise, as well as it's in French. As Gene Kelly says in AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, they may say the same things the folks said back home, but it sounds better in French.

Did you get to see it? I'd be interested to hear where you'd place in the Woody Allen canon!

My list (Woody Allen as director):

The Best
What's Up Tiger Lily? (1966)
Love and Death (1975)
Annie Hall (1977)
Manhattan (1979)
Zelig (1983)
Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
The Purple Rose Of Cairo (1985)
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Radio Days (1987)
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
Husbands and Wives (1992)
Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993)
Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
Sweet and Lowdown (1999)
Match Point (2005)
Midnight In Paris (2011)
Blue Jasmine (2013)

The Worst
Shadows and Fog (1992)
Celebrity (1998)
The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion (2001)
Hollywood Ending (2002)
Anything Else (2003)
Scoop (2006)
Cassandra's Dream (2007)
Whatever Works (2009)
To Rome With Love (2012)
Magic In The Moonlight (2014)
Café Society (2016)
Wonder Wheel (2017)
A Rainy Day In New York (2019)
Rifkin's Festival (2020)

So I would say more gold than crap, on balance. Everything else I'd rate as second-tier Woody Allen; enjoyable or watchable for people who really like his work. As you say, his purple patch was really the 1970s to the 1980s, but he was still putting out some good ones in 1990s, before he started churning out dreck regularly.

 

[lark144]

Did you get to see it? I'd be interested to hear where you'd place in the Woody Allen canon!

My list (Woody Allen as director):

The Best
What's Up Tiger Lily? (1966)
Love and Death (1975)
Annie Hall (1977)
Manhattan (1979)
Zelig (1983)
Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
The Purple Rose Of Cairo (1985)
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Radio Days (1987)
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
Husbands and Wives (1992)
Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993)
Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
Sweet and Lowdown (1999)
Match Point (2005)
Midnight In Paris (2011)
Blue Jasmine (2013)

The Worst
Shadows and Fog (1992)
Celebrity (1998)
The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion (2001)
Hollywood Ending (2002)
Anything Else (2003)
Scoop (2006)
Cassandra's Dream (2007)
Whatever Works (2009)
To Rome With Love (2012)
Magic In The Moonlight (2014)
Café Society (2016)
Wonder Wheel (2017)
A Rainy Day In New York (2019)
Rifkin's Festival (2020)

So I would say more gold than crap, on balance. Everything else I'd rate as second-tier Woody Allen; enjoyable or watchable for people who really like his work. As you say, his purple patch was really the 1970s to the 1980s, but he was still putting out some good ones in 1990s, before he started churning out dreck regularly.

COUP DE CHANCE was much better then I expected. And it also went to a completely different place. I was on the edge of my seat for the last 45 minutes.

It's such a good film; entertaining, engaging and beautifully made. And though there are all kinds of resonances and echoes from previous Woody Allen films, you don't have to be a Woody Allen fan to like it.

I think it works on its own, outside of the context of Woody's career and persona. I think it would play beautifully with ordinary audiences, if you could somehow get them to see it, outside of the strum & drang & cookie-cutter mediocrity of Woody's last decade of projects.

While this is along the lines of MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY--a film I love, btw--this is much better. I think it's a wonderful script, very far from a first draft, beautifully worked out, with engaging, believable characters and consistently surprising plot turns. It's one of the best things Woody has come up with in a long time. I didn't expect it to turn into a crime film. On one level, it's almost neo-noir. And yet, it's also so many other things: a serio-comedy, a study of a young woman's transformation, a celebration of Paris, and French film, especially Renoir, Rohmer, Rivette and Truffaut.

It's both a movie-movie and a post-modern work of cinematic meditation.
As if someone decided to cross THE THIN MAN with HISTORIE(S) DU CINEMA.

Yes, Stroaro is up to his old tricks using orange filters on lights, but it comes across in this film as a series of quotations marks and gags, similar to how Woody used Ghislain Cloquet's photography in LOVE AND DEATH, as well as a philosophical investigation of sexuality and death, the way Bertolucci used those orange filters in LAST TANGO IN PARIS.

As Godard said, (and I paraphrase) a quotation is a perfectly valid thing to put into a film, along with a close-up or deep-focus shot. Now, I disliked the use of a quotation from Ford's THE SEARCHERS in STAR WARS, you know, the scene where Luke discovers his father's death, for it was an attempt to afix meaning and depth on a scene that couldn't really express any of that, whereas in COUP DE CHANCE, those shots have so many multiple meanings and functions.

Just take, for instance, that long plan sequence in the beginning of the two old schoolfriends walking together, having lunch in a park. For me, it's a reference to those similar scenes in the beginning of CELINE ET JULIE, where those Parisian parks turn into a wonderland, or LA FEMME DE L'AVIATEUR. It's about intimacy and transformation, in both style and substance. Another link would be that long embrace between Grant and Bergman in NOTORIOUS, where the camera follows them through the apartment. And while Woody is clearly aware of these precursors, in the way he composes the shot, he also transcends this, creating new ground. He's forming an unique kind of intimacy, of being in the moment, that goes beyond quotation, though that's also part of it. I think you can enjoy and even love this film without having seen any of those movies Woody refers to, because on a very deep level, what happens in this film exists in its own time and place, creating its own magic.

In CAFE SOCIETY were some of the most beautifully lit shots I've ever seen in a film, but they were flat, empty, purely decorative. The lighting and composition had nothing to do with what the scene was about. In COUP DE CHANCE, it's the reverse. Those images are alive, they breathe, as well as the characters and anyone who happens to be watching. It's cinema, it's life, or a tone parallel, anyway. As Hitch might say, it's a slice of cake.

Where would I rate COUP DE CHANCE in Woody’s career? I’m not sure yet. After all, I’ve only just seen the film. But I like it better than you do. For me, it’s his best film since HUSBANDS AND WIVES, which I think may be his greatest.

 

[titch]

COUP DE CHANCE was much better then I expected. And it also went to a completely different place. I was on the edge of my seat for the last 45 minutes.

Where would I rate COUP DE CHANCE in Woody’s career? I’m not sure yet. After all, I’ve only just seen the film. But I like it better than you do. For me, it’s his best film since HUSBANDS AND WIVES, which I think may be his greatest.

That's a great review. The themes are revisited and familiar to me (Manhattan Murder Mystery and Crimes and Misdemeanours), but somehow everything in Coup de Chance is fresh and rejuvenated - like Match Point was, when he decided to move out of New York, to Europe. And seeing how Woody Allen clearly is a master filmmaker, when the script is good and when everything else clicks, is confirmation that he is in the same league as the film auteurs he's always admired. Filming, editing, music, acting - all perfectly executed. He's always managed to find aspiring actors and actresses, before they became universal. All the performances in Coup de Chance are superb, without any of the male leads trying to be "Woody Allen".

You may be right - it's probably one of his great movies. I'll have to see it again. A fitting swan song to a phenomenal career. Robert Harris should see this.

 

[Robert Harris]

That's a great review. The themes are revisited and familiar to me (Manhattan Murder Mystery and Crimes and Misdemeanours), but somehow everything in Coup de Chance is fresh and rejuvenated - like Match Point was, when he decided to move out of New York, to Europe. And seeing how Woody Allen clearly is a master filmmaker, when the script is good and when everything else clicks, is confirmation that he is in the same league as the film auteurs he's always admired. Filming, editing, music, acting - all perfectly executed. He's always managed to find aspiring actors and actresses, before they became universal. All the performances in Coup de Chance are superb, without any of the male leads trying to be "Woody Allen".

You may be right - it's probably one of his great movies. I'll have to see it again. A fitting swan song to a phenomenal career. Robert Harris should see this.

He has. And thoroughly enjoined it.

Mr. Allen is back running on all 12 cylinders. There may be those who see the beautiful tints, which remind me of the silent cinema, and may elicit comments of “so yellow,” but I loved the variations in mood.

The only element that I noted were the sub-titles, which made me aware that as with most Allen films, dialogue flows so quickly that some may have problems keeping up.

Wonderful film, which will receive a review when I have a moment to do so.

 

[titch]

Inspired by watching this film, I've now booked a weekend in Paris next month. My son and I will be visiting the locations in the film and enjoying the French joie de vivre and ambience!

Coup de Chance - filming locations

Sceen it! The filming location of Coup de Chance (credits: Gravier Productions, Perdido Productions, Dippermouth, Petite Fleur Productions) #sceenit #filming #location

www.sceen-it.com

Interestingly, the two main characters in the film fell in love during production and are now a couple! Just like Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem did during Vicky Christina Barcelona!

“Coup de Chance” in Paris, in French, by Woody Allen | Paris Diary by Laure

parisdiarybylaure.com