The Game Is Over

Rating:
Summary: An adult French farce from Jane Fonda and Roger Vadim
Review: Although it is set in modern Paris, "The Game Is Over" is actually based on Emile Zola's novel "La Curee." This 1966 film was directed and produced by Roger Vadim for his wife, Jane Fonda. The film is the old story about a woman, Renee (Fonda), who marries an older man, Alexandre Sacaard (Michael Piccoli), but falls for his sexy young son Maxime (Peter McEnergy). By setting Zola's story in modern Paris, Vadim is obviously out to explore the morality of the rich in France. The film was a smash in Europe but a failure in the United States, although critics on both sides of the Atlantic tended to like it as an example of adult farce (although Judith Christ put it at the top of her list of "Perfectly Marvelous Awful Movies to Eat Chocolates and Play Russ Columbo Records By"). However, while this film certainly starts off as something of a farce, Vadim turns it into more of a gothic horror movie at the end. Any visions you have of Fonda swimming nude in a goldfish pond are going to be replaced by nightmares involving German police dogs. On balance, this might be the best of the Vadim-Fonda efforts...

Rating:
Summary: An adult French farce from Jane Fonda and Roger Vadim
Review: Although it is set in modern Paris, "The Game Is Over" is actually based on Emile Zola's novel "La Curee." This 1966 film was directed and produced by Roger Vadim for his wife, Jane Fonda. The film is the old story about a woman, Renee (Fonda), who marries an older man, Alexandre Sacaard (Michael Piccoli), but falls for his sexy young son Maxime (Peter McEnergy). By setting Zola's story in modern Paris, Vadim is obviously out to explore the morality of the rich in France. The film was a smash in Europe but a failure in the United States, although critics on both sides of the Atlantic tended to like it as an example of adult farce (although Judith Christ put it at the top of her list of "Perfectly Marvelous Awful Movies to Eat Chocolates and Play Russ Columbo Records By"). However, while this film certainly starts off as something of a farce, Vadim turns it into more of a gothic horror movie at the end. Any visions you have of Fonda swimming nude in a goldfish pond are going to be replaced by nightmares involving German police dogs. On balance, this might be the best of the Vadim-Fonda efforts...