Trouble Every Day (2001)

Simply A Masterpiece

As Good As It Gets

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Doing research on french sickies, you all know the holy three...(Martyrs, Frontiere, Inside)I noticed this flick. Just before Dans Ma Peau they released this weird movie. I can agree that if you liked The Addiction you will like this one. But again, it is typical French, extremely slow and a lot of talking. There is a bit of blood in it and one sickening scene. I won't spoil what is going on between a just married couple going on honeymoon. But be aware. French movies clock in above the average 90 minutes and they were slow at that time being. As I said, after this one came another slow sickie, Dans Ma Peau, just before France was put onto the horror map with the first real sickies Irreversible and Haute Tension, both from 2003. Nice to see that after the era of JP Belmondo and Alain Delon France was ready for the real stuff.

On a honeymoon in Paris with his beautiful wife, an American man heads to the home of an exiled medical professional, Léo (Alex Descas), who specializes in the field that Shane (Vincent Gallo) has been involved with: The Human Libido. At Léo's home, Shane meets Léo's wife, Coré (Béatrice Dalle of 'À l'intérieur'), who is kept locked away from the world due to her carnivorous carnal tendencies. The secrets and events that follow will be the most shocking and horrifying of the young couple's lives.Hearing that this film borders on unlikable due to the subject matter, I had to pounce on the opportunity to view it. Expecting a truly shocking and disturbing French horror. . . I was not disappointed. The depth of exploration of sexuality and cannibalism (and the sexuality OF cannibalism) goes unmatched by any single film I've ever seen. While it's not a film that is particularly enjoyable, as it does reach some limits that are unusual for modern cinema of this style, it's still beautifully made and extremely fascinating. The entire cast delivers at least above-adequate performances, some better than others (include Béatrice Dalle in the 'better' category as usual). Like another recent film of Dalle's, 'Trouble Every Day'f features an extremely cringeworthy scene that sent chills up and down my spine. It's not nearly as graphic in a sense of quantity as I'd expected, but the quality of the brutality is what makes the film so effective.Final Verdict: 8/10.-AP3-

From what I've read of him, I do not like Vincent Gallo as a person, and he often physically repulses me. In Trouble Every Day, he does physically repulse me more than ever, yet I do not dislike him in his role. What I must say impresses me about Gallo is his ability as an actor, including performances under his own writing and direction, to play roles devoid of any of the ego that he defensively projects what I've read of his off-screen life and that are crippled by hopeless insecurity and apprehension, which he showcases without a hint of inhibition or unintended uneasiness. That is why I believe he continues to find work in movies in spite of the unbelievable amount of projects from which he was fired or walked away, the amount of people he claims to hate, and the mind-blowingly infuriated critical and audience reaction to his sophomore effort at the helm, The Brown Bunny. All-embracing filmmakers see him as one of the very few actors who has no problem baring himself for a performance as a truly pathetic character. In this film, he is honeymooning with his wife in Paris superficially in an effort to nurture their new life together, however the core reason is so that he can visit a medical clinic where studies of the human libido are undertaken. He hopes to rid himself of the bloodthirsty urges that have always plagued him.The real shock found in this film is my surprise introduction to Beatrice Dalle, who I have never before seen in a movie and near whom I hope to be wearing football gear inside the Batmobile if I ever see her in person. As a doctor's wife who is psychologically in ruins due to a mysterious overextention of her libido and is too dangerous for her husband to let her free from the bedroom during the day, she reaches as deeply into the most basic appetitive animal instincts as she is capable and plainly ensues as a nightmarish monster of berserk chaos. It was clever of writer/director Claire Denis to cast two notoriously wild atypical people of extremity in their roles.Denis's scenes of gore, which due to her focus on the morose feelings of the characters, mainly Gallo, his wife, and Dalle are intermittent and often difficult to anticipate, are extremely disturbing. During a scene where Dalle attacks a person's flesh as they lay in shock, barely able to scream, the sounds made by both Dalle and her victim are heard just barely over the glum, cheerlessly jazzy score. In the other scenes of violence, Denis's wise discerning between the appropriate placement or absence of music asserts a very moving outcome.Though I was expecting a grittier cinematographic delivery, the film is stirring, well made, and metaphorically interpretable.

The movie unfolds nicely, but once it opens, there's not much there. Although the movie plays all its cards on the atmosphere, it still feels kind of trivial. Terrible Vincent Gallo acting doesn't help either. However, the rest of the acting is good and the pace of the movie is very adequate, slow but never painful. (Many could learn here how to make a slow movie that doesn't drag.) One of the best things in this movie is the music (by the Tindersticks); it's very good and intelligently used. The theme song is wonderful. If you want to see a more creative take on the vampirism theme or you want to see how drama can be gorier than most of the horror movies, you could find something interesting here.