Film review: Mammuth
THOUGH it features French acting royalty in the form Gerard Depardieu, Isabelle Adjani and Sraphine's always excellent Yolande Moreau, there's something a little lazy and overly familiar about this drama about a sad-sack retiree (Depardieu) whose efforts to sort out his pension force him to take a redemptive road trip.
Partly that's down to the way Belgian directors Gustave de Kervern and Benot Delpine borrow their over-the-shoulder shooting style wholesale from fellow countrymen the Dardenne brothers. But it also has to do with the dull, predictable collection of oddballs Depardieu's depressed Serge meets along the way (a crippled grifter, an antisocial beachcomber, various nutty family members), as well as the drip-feeding of tragic details from his past that are supposed to give him depth but really just regurgitate all the same old provincial cinematic tropes. Depardieu doesn't even get to show us what he can do as an actor; instead, the film has him literally haunted by, and conversing with, his past in the form of a ghost (Adjani) who dispenses empty platitudes about embracing life before it's too late.