Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18636 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-01-10
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 110 minutes

Synopsis
Viviane Denvers is a well-known film actress who has many male admirers. At the premiere of her latest picture she is pursued by Beaufort, a rather large government official. To get away from him she attaches herself to an unsuitable older man who takes her home. After an argument she slaps him only to find that he has dropped dead. Terrified she calls on a former boyfriend to help her move the body. French dialogue with English subtitles.

Customer Reviews

Happy travellers
Bon Voyage is a throwback to the screwball comedies of the forties, featuring all the essential ingredients; a good natured, handsome hero, a scurrilous woman, misinderstandings, mishaps and the ultimate triumph of good over adversity.

Set in a France on the verge of invasion by Germany in WWII, the film could plunge into political discussion, but in fact, beyond the 'all power corrupts' line flowing through many films, Bon Voyage keeps the laughs coming think and fast. The rush to establish the Vichy government is handled deftly and the characters involved, whilst being caricatures of the type are all, to some extent, believable.

The two leads are a delight, demonstrating great comic timing, and despite it all, likeability and Gerard Depardieu is, as always, a treat. The subtitles are legible, don't intrude on the action and can make you laugh and the whole film is carried off with style, passion and great affection for the genre.

If you are a fan of well made screwball comedies and like your plots to twist and turn, then this movie is for you!

A very uneven journey
Jean-Paul Rappeneau's disappointing but glossy and lavish comedy melodrama set against the fall of France and the birth of the Vichy government in WW2 is full of good things but never really hits the spot, perhaps because Isabelle Adjani seems so miscast as a self-centered French movie star who uses those around her, be they screenwriters to dispose of bodies of murdered blackmailers (and take the rap when it goes wrong), ministers to get her out of Paris or German spies when needs must. Like the character, it's not so much that she's bad as that there's nothing to her - she's too much of blank here to convey such a magnetic presence. But Gerard Depardieu's malleable politician (whose final scene is the film's finest and darkest) and Yvan Attal in an underwritten part as a good-natured crook who always does the right thing are among the film's many compensations.

Although not as good as the Fench 2-disc set, the UK DVD features some decent extras - documentary The Double Life of Jean-Paul Rappeneau, cast interviews, behind the scenes footage, French and US trailers, and trailers for Pepe le Moko and Plein Soleil.

Bon!
"Bon Voyage" may be the first in the history of film to consider the Nazis a nuisance. Okay, that may be an exaggeration. But this frothy French film uses World War II merely as a backdrop to play out some odd love tetrahedons, although the film never entirely finishes itself.

Struggling writer Frederic Auger (Gregori Derangere) receives a call from his ex-girlfriend, the famed actress Viviane Denvert (Isabelle Adjani) -- she just killed a man (accidently, she claims). Still besotted, Frederic helps dispose of the body, but ends up arrested for the crime, and Viviane doesn't help him. But several months later, as the Germans invade Paris, Frederic manages to escape prison.

Frederic goes to the overcrowded Bordeux, where Viviane is staying with her new lover, the minister of the Interior (Gerard Depardieu). He also befriends an earnest young assistant (Virginie Ledoyen) who is helping a professor smuggle a secret chemical out of the country. As France falls to Germany, Viviane will learn some hard lessons, and Frederic will figure out what he cares about most.

"Bon Voyage" is a pleasant movie that isn't romantic enough to be a romance, not dramatic enough to be a drama, and not comic enough to be a comedy. Instead it could be said to be a movie about a man getting over a crush on a manipulative actress, and finding out what love can really be about.

But it is quite an amusing movie -- one good scene has Viviane fleeing and throwing herself on the bed, weeping; at the same time, she peeks discreetly to see how the maiden-in-distress act is working. And quite a bit of humor is derived from how many of the French people aren't too concerned about the invasion. Sure, everything will work outself out.

A feeling of grimness seeps into some scenes, such as anything involving the potentially explosive "heavy water," and a few fight scenes involving the Germans. However, the main plot has a frothy flavor. The one problem is the ending -- while it has the basic wrap-up, it feels hasty and quickly tacked on. Especially since we never see exactly what happens to Viviane. It's hinted at, but we never hear or see.

Isabelle Adjani does a marvelous job with the shallow, man-hunting Viviane, the kind of gal who always has another guy lined up to take care of her, no matter what happens. Derangere and Depardieu give excellent supporting performances as the former boyfriend and the jealous present lover, but Ledoyen's character is too earnest and simplistic to seem like more than a convenient love interest.

"Bon Voyage" suffers from a weak ending, but the frothy World War II romantic-dramedy is still a pleasant story. Bon Voyage!