Poupoupidou

Nobody Else But You kind of sneaks up on you. It starts out being a deadpan Fargo like comedy---love that quick shot of the main character throwing away the big stuffed dog in the first 5 minutes---but quickly turns into a slightly melancholy investigation of the death of this local weather-woman. I'm not giving anything away--the body of the woman is found within the first ten minutes of the film and the main character is a writer looking for a subject for his next book---so the plot is set up very nice and neat right at the very beginning. The entire movie is mostly taken up by the writer's investigation (and frustrations in his investigations thanks to all the colorful locals) but rather then focusing on the other people in the weather-woman's life--the writer (and the movie) is really more focused on the woman's emotional state before she died-(the writer stumbles onto her diaries which is a neat way of having her narrate the movie from beyond in a way that makes logical sense and not just there because the director wanted to pay homage to sunset boulevard and American beauty) Eventually we find out that she was hardly the happy go lucky young woman everyone in town makes her out to be--she is in fact a rather sad young woman who completely modeled herself--on Marilyn Monroe---which actually explains the title if you think about it. In fact this movie might actually capture Marilyn's melancholy, bitterness, and flat out sadness better then the recent "My Life with Marilyn" did. (well maybe not better but this would definitely make an interesting movie to watch on a double bill with Marilyn--and it would prob be seen as a good attempt to put "Marilyn" in a noir of her own.) As a who done it the movie is kind of a wash out--we find out who did it all right enough but we're never really given any great motive or incentive for why---in fact i honestly felt the identity of the murderer ended up being pretty arbitrary---but as a story about a young woman who's thirst for fame left her less then satisfied--and as a story about a writer trying to understand the events that led to this young vital woman's demise--the movie was successfully engaging and just different enough thanks to its frigid atmosphere and various local characters to be entertaining. Even if the semi comedy we were kind of set up for at the beginning all but vanishes by the end of the film--the tonal shift from deadpan comedy to slightly bleak drama is handled nicely enough that it never feels jarring while you're watching it (its really only after i started thinking about it after wards that i thought hey when this thing started wasn't it supposed to be a comedy?) If you're in the mood for a more than decent drama with traces of comedy in it (and if you're in the mood for a decent writer investigates a murder movie as well) this should fit the bill.