Reviews:Chicago Tribune:
"Derangere and Ledoyen are perfect pure-hearted young lovers, and Attal makes a
wonderful sly comic sidekick. Coyote is a fine, fox-faced heavy full of
malignant envy."
Washington Times:
"A pleasing 'voyage' to French adventure... Mr.
Coyote, the
American actor-writer, speaks excellent French and German."
Variety:
A rousing, well-crafted romp packed with ingenuity, duplicity, close calls and heroic
gestures... Ambitious, multi-layered tale, comfortably awash in old-fashioned gloss and
theatrical archetypes, is suspenseful fun from start to finish... Attal is lawless panache
personified as Raoul, and Peter Coyote shows up as a well-connected Anglo
journalist who has the hots for Viviane. Crowd scenes are impressive, chases and fist
fights nicely staged. Gabriel Yared's score is atmospheric but never overbearing.
Production design is evocative, and both lensing and editing are aces. In fact, entire
package is ultra-pro."
NPR:
"There's loads of plot, but what's most memorable about "Bon Voyage" is
atmosphere, that and the synchronized star turns. The cast includes not just impossibly
youthful Isabelle Adjani and improbably slender Gerard Depardieu, but also American actor
Peter Coyote, speaking credibly in both French and German."
Film Stew:
"Viviane may be a bit cloying, but the innocent Camille is bound to capture your
affection as she falls for Frederic while trying to fend off Raoul’s advances. Even
Alex, who is essentially the bad guy of the film, has some endearing qualities thanks to
an eye-opening multilingual performance by the veteran Coyote."
San Diego Metropolitan:
"Bon Voyage boasts an excellent ensemble cast across the board. Adjani's
spoiled diva, Depardieu's cautious politician, Coyote's smooth spy,
Derangère's hopeless lover, Kopolski's aged scientist, Attal's almost sympathetic
criminal and Ledoyen's sweet student are all memorable characters and charmingly
played."
Movie-vault.com:
"Adjani is simply wonderful as the glamorous, radiant film star, and in mocking her
character's 'helpless' behavior. Derangère is chivalrous and handsome. Depardieu has a
natural charisma makes his performance seem effortless... The alluring Ledoyen gives
Camille a down-to-Earth quality that contrasts with the lofty and vain Viviane. Coyote's
spot-on accents in French and German makes him a convincing spy."
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
"An utterly accessible, thoroughly entertaining World War II thriller whose mild
comedic touches detract not a whit from the haunted memory of Nazi occupation. And an
American actor - Peter Coyote (A Walk to Remember,Erin Brockovich)
- is even on board to sweeten the deal."
Boston Herald:
"A giddy farce with pell-mell pacing, Bon Voyage takes one of the saddest,
grimmest episodes in modern French history, the fall of Paris to the Nazis, as the setting
for the June 1940 flight of wealthy Parisians to the seaside town of Bordeaux, and somehow
turns it into a glorious, achingly funny comedy... a slightly unsavory journalist Winckler
(Peter Coyote, a long way from E.T.), who has a too-familiar way
with the German language to be trusted."
San Francisco Chronicle:
"The frenetic activity in this vastly entertaining French film never lets up... The
unsavory characters in Bon Voyage, including the two-faced French cabinet
minister Beaufort (Gerard Depardieu), the self-involved actress Viviane (Isabelle Adjani)
and the opportunist journalist Alex (the Bay Area's own Peter Coyote,
speaking flawless French) may be made up, but they surely had parallels running around
France at the time."
New York Daily News:
"An all-star French cast joins American Peter Coyote and
audience-pleasing director Jean-Paul Rappeneau (Cyrano de Bergerac) for an
amiable World War II espionage thriller whose wild mood fluctuations range from melodrama
to farce."
Dallas Observer:
"Gerard Depardieu plays a kindly government minister intrigued by a shallow screen
starlet (Isabelle Adjani) who has inadvertently framed a struggling young writer (Grégori
Derangère) over a tidy little homicide or was it? Add Virginie Ledoyen as a dedicated
physics student guarding a volatile discovery, and Peter Coyote playing
the polyglot as a tricky turncoat, mix in along the periphery some Nazi invaders (called
"Germans" throughout), and stir. The result is beautiful to behold, featuring
some fine, understated performances."
Efilmcritic.com:
"Bon Voyage is doubtlessly a classy production with solid photography by
Thierry Arbogast and a very able cast, including Gerard Depardieu, Virginie Ledoyen, Yvan
Attal, Gregori Derangere, Jean-Marc Stehle, Aurore Clement, and in a polyglot role, Peter
Coyote."
Monsieur Cinema:
"Gregory Derangere (Frederic), is the perfect young person with the class and ardour
of Cary Grant. Gerard Depardieu is perfectly credible as the Minister for the Republic. It
is also necessary to mention Virginie Ledoyen, Peter Coyote and Yvan
Attal... Bon Voyage is a great romantic comedy of adventures. Popular and
intelligent cinema..."
Eclipse Magazine:
"Bon Voyage boasts some of France’s A-list stars (Gerard Depardieu,
Isabelle Adjani), along with promising newcomers (Gregori Derange and Virginie Ledoyen,
who made a splash with American audiences in The Beach) In a bit of inspired
casting, Hollywood vet Peter Coyote plays a nosy journalist. And, as is
typical of French cinema, beautiful scenery and equally beautiful people abound."
Film Journal International:
"With its large cast, multiple plots and period sets, not to mention its commingling
of genres, Bon Voyage is an ambitious, indeed audacious, film, as clever a piece of
filmmaking as we’ll likely get this year. Director Jean-Paul Rappeneau combines
comedy, romance, thriller, pastiche and parody, choreographs an invasion and an exodus,
stage-manages multiple infatuations and love affairs, and orchestrates a noir-ish tale of
espionage. All of this, plus smart social satire and a heartfelt homage to the golden age
of Hollywood... . Camille is also keeping a flirtatious eye on Winckler (Peter
Coyote), a suspiciously suave English journalist who turns out to have excellent
German."
DVD Verdict:
"Coyote brings a quiet but effective sense of menace to the inscrutable journalist
Alex Winckler."
Current Film:
"Depardieu and Derangère are excellent, while Peter Coyote's
performance is both expertly shady and compelling."
Le Quotidien du Cinema:
"A comedy of manners with the background of war... similar to a dance where each one
changes partners to each change of rhythm, richness coming from the duets which are done,
demolished and remade with the thread of history, with the chance of meetings,
circumstances, events... To all these characters, it is necessary to add an English spy
working for the Nazis (Peter Coyote), a key character who will connect
the various intrigues."
 "Everything in this film
speaks to me. Everything has a precise relevance. Everything is connected to me, either to
my family history, to my childhood, or to what shaped me over the years - my taste in
books, my love of the theater, of American and French cinema, my passion for history, plus
other things even more intimate. Nothing is there by chance... I have spent extraordinary
months with an extraordinary cast and crew. I hope that when audiences watch Bon
Voyage, they will receive all the love, the passion and the work that we've all put
into it."
Director Rappeneau speaks further about Coyote's role as Alex Winckler - "The
character of the German spy/English journalist was Modiano's idea. Before the war there
were some Germans in Paris who were very adept at speaking French and for the most they
took jobs as writers and journalists. They spoke French perfectly and fit right into
Parisian society, often as the lovers of actresses at the time. In our story, we portrayed
a completely fictional spy, but it's all quite plausible."
Did you know?
-
This was France's entry for the Academy Award's Best Foreign
Language Film. However, it did not receive an Oscar nomination.
-
In France it received 11 Cesar nominations (equivalent to an Oscar). It won for Best
Cinematography, Best Production Design and Most Promising Actor (Gregori Derangere).
-
In the US it was featured at the Palm Springs, Miami and Portland Film Festivals. Abroad
it was screened at the French Film Festivals in Iceland and the Czech Republic, and at the
International Film Festivals in Toronto and Copenhagen.
Images
|
