Girl on the Bridge

Director: Patrice Leconte
Year Released: 2000
Rating: 3.0

Harmless little film which is cheery and light - if not always resoundingly effective or enveloping - about "luck" and how two people, absolute disasters when left to their own devices, find success when they team up. But the trick is ... he's a knife-thrower and she's suicidal. Since it's hardly as dense as some of Leconte's other works, it's a lot of fun, and although I never bought the relationship between Vanessa Paradis and Daniel Autiel, it never really seemed to bother me. Though it is a fantasy and I recognized it for that, Leconte takes a few too many liberties and uses a couple of silly contrivances that spoil things a bit. The wonderful black and white cinematography - which brings to mind Nestor Almendros and all the French films he shot - is also reminiscent of the high-contrast fashion photographs of Anton Corbijn.