Nearest to Heaven Movie Review

"Reinventions" rarely work this way. Normally, when a filmmaker gets an idea to reimagine a movie, they do it with a modern flair, a younger cast, and a hip soundtrack. Rarely does a filmmaker take an old standard classic and remake it with actors in their fifties -- and in French.

The strange update of An Affair to Remember goes like this: A dazed and neurotic French woman named Fanette (Catherine Deneuve) is so obsessed with Affair that she sneaks into the movie theater constantly to see it. (You can still see An Affair to Remember in Paris theaters?) An old flame resurfaces -- she thinks -- and a mysterious note arrives suggesting she meet him in three days at the top of the Empire State Building, just like in Affair!

She heads to NYC with borderline alcoholic photographer Matt (William Hurt) in tow -- on a piece of McGuffin-class bit of business involving the picture-taking of a piece of art. But really this is just an excuse to get Fanette and Matt together -- to see if she won't dump her old boyfriend and forget about the Empire State rendezvous -- despite her obsession with Affair.

Director Tonie Marshall (Venus Beauty Institute) unfortunately imbues this tale with so little passion that we can't help but not care about any of the characters involved with this saga. Fanette is distant. Matt is just plain weird. Together they have minimal chemistry, which doesn't make for a great romance.

Slow and ultimately without much of a point, you'll have to be a hard-core fan of Deneuve to want to check this out.

The DVD includes deleted scenes and a making-of featurette.

Aka Au plus près du paradis.