Mes jours de gloire

A missed opportunity ;the subject was appealing :a child actor coming to terms with the fact that he's no longer a star but a failed thespian ;everyone's not Elizabeth Taylor or Mickey Rooney.

Unfortunately , the subject is skimmed over , leaving the lion's share to the hero''s sexuality ; no hint at former glories after the beginning ; instead ,de rigueur so called funny scenes in the pharmacy or in the doctor's office ,dealing with the hero's impotence , with a total lack of finesse and decency (it's all in your head ,doc says ); it's difficult to feel for this bland young man , taking refuge in dad's and mom's home : both are caricatures of what the French call "bourgeois bohèmes ": Christophe(r) Lambert and Emmanuelle Devos are given extremely poor parts, with underwritten lines: the expected confession of the mom takes the biscuit ,but restores Adrien 's manliness !

In consequence, the scenes where the former star rehearses scenes from a hypothetical movie about the life of ...Charles de Gaulle retain a certain humor (the scene of the moustache is perhaps the funniest in the whole story),and the life of France 's greatest man of the twentieth century is given an almost tongue in cheek treatment.One can also save the excellent scene in the therapy center with the black psychologist whose words ring truer than the mother's interminable "I've been through it all too "monologue : it's the only scene in which Vincent Lacoste really rises up to the occasion ,his jerky lines go straight to the heart .