Camille Rewinds (2012) User Reviews

We always stay children ...

[Nat64 · 7/10 · 17 September 2012]

"Camille redouble" is quite characteristic of the current french cinema evolution : there have always been comedies, though the new ones are more energetic, colorful, while still keeping some seriousness .

Indeed, this movie is about Camille, a 40-something years old woman struggling in her present life, who has the chance to visit her teenage past. She's trying not to re do the same errors,saying to her parents how much she loves them, trying to bar her future boyfriend to approach her... though it appears that all these attempts are not functioning well. And it reminds us that there is no way trying to change the past, we just have to live with it...

This movie is very interesting, in its approach of some major elements of everyone's life : death, friendship, love. Usually, for a deep analysis of the latter themes you would see a grim movie(at least in France), but with this one, you will come out of the theater thinking and yet with a smile on your face.

Enjoyable... if a little trite

[Jim_Screechy · 7/10 · 16 April 2023]

Ten years after this release I'm reviewing this movie... go figure.

At close to two hours this is quite a long film since the character progression and ultimate outcome are wispy thin developments that go nowhere. It sort of made me feel cheated for watching something I had for the most part, enjoyed and had high expectations for.

Generally 'Going back in Time' films address some aspect of life that needs to be addressed or changed. If offers the opportunity for resolution of some sort which the screenplay then provides. This isn't really the case here, and although I'm not opposed to the different approach taken to the execution normally chosen, there was a lack of progression here that sort of expresses.... an exercise in futility. That said I did enjoy the film for the most part.

It was very well acted and directed. The period authenticity, the relationship of friendship and deep bonding between the girls in their youth, especially given the actress who plays the Camile -Noémie Lvovsky is considerably older than the actresses who play her peers, is very well done and powerfully portrayed.

Some aspects of the film didn't work for me. I can understand why she feels so strongly for the boyfriend of her youth, since for her, there are twenty four years of marriage and love to relate to, but his feelings for her are implausible. He's just met her and they've barely had any interaction yet he speaks of maddening love and desire. The love he speaks of, so deep like magnetic bonds that compare to planetary gravitation is inexplicable. This really needed to be demonstrated rather than told. It's a similar experience with the Physics teacher she becomes attached to at the drop of a hat for apparently no reason; what! When! Why? There is a lot of 'fluff' in the film that should have been abandoned in favour of emphasising these aspects of the movie.

Ultimately the time travel aspect of the film isn't really explored as anything more than an elaborate flashback, and this causes the movie to fall somewhat with any sort of real development or conclusion. If your going to go through the trouble of 'a time journey back to the past', for god sake do something with it.

That said, I still enjoyed the movie and think 7/10 may be a little high for what it delivers, but the aspects of the film that 'were' good, were very good.

Empty

[christophe92300 · 4/10 · 12 September 2013]

The first hour of the movie is pretty enjoyable, and even though the time travel theme has been over used, this melancholic story, to which anyone can relate to, is still touching.

Unfortunately, the second hour is much less glorious. The script badly flounders and doesn't manage to find a much needed second wind. The situations are under exploited, the characters don't evolve, there are no stakes or consequences, and the plot's final outcome suggests that everything is fate-related: what is then the point of the movie if nothing could have been altered ?

The disappointment is proportional to the high expectations caused by the raving critics.

You will laugh and cry

[muriel-milne · 8/10 · 7 February 2013]

Noemie Lovsvsky has been around in French films and directed them for the last 18 years but she is discreet and has made her way slowly but surely. She is signing with Camille Rewinds a sweet bitter comedy that anyone can relate to. She tells a story of a 40 year old woman who needs to make amends, who needs to change her past somehow. New Year's Eve come and there she is brought back in her past. Her past is in the 80's and the director has paid extreme attention to details. You will recognize the beddings, the home accessories, kitchen details that come from the 80's and you will be transported yourself to that era. Camille needs to tell something to her mother and she does. The story is intertwined with comedy and tragic moments, you laugh and then you cry, it is a roller-coaster of emotions ! The director shows that love, death, passion roll together; she is sensitive to sight, scent, touch, taste (for the champagne) and hearing !! When you loved someone you loved their sight, scent, touch, voice, you feel all of that in the film. This film is a love letter to old acquaintances that should not be forgotten.

Sweet and funny but also life-affirming

[newtt11 · 9/10 · 10 November 2012]

Caught this film at the Sitges Film Festival, and wasn't sure what to expect. It sounded like a more serious version of 'Peggy Sue got Married' from the description, and I didn't really have any expectations for it, but I was kind of blown away a little.

Although mostly a comedy, with light-hearted/comic situations as Camille returns to her teenage years, this film treated the conundrums/ paradoxes of time travel in quite a serious way at times and was actually quite thought provoking. And a tragic scenario involving Camille and her mother is set up incredibly well, so when it arrives it is just absolutely heartbreaking. Seriously, take tissues.

The director/actress really gives a fantastic performance - convincing as both the bitter, washed up Camille in the future and a mix between this and the wide-eyed teenager she becomes in the past. She does a great job of juggling the comedy and dramatic moments, as both actress and director. I'm surprised never to have heard of her before, but I'm sure after this film she will receive more exposure. She also had a colourful,interesting visual style going on, not least in the extremely cool backwards slow-motion opening credits.

Camille Redouble does mostly everything right.

[krabat-0 · 8/10 · 26 May 2013]

8/10

The thing that makes this '2nd chance'-time travel plot a really good story is the lead's resistance to repeating the past - in this I cheered her on and wished for the best, because she tries so very hard to avoid the bad things from her adult life and focuses on making the good things happen, most importantly her pregnancy. Watching her come to terms with the things, she realizes she cannot change - most of all her own feelings - is watching an immature adult finally take on adulthood.

That she is also never overly smart, ie. exploiting her superior knowledge of events or experience of life lived, makes her presence in her past one of watching consciousness and self confidence at play. One can imagine oneself being utterly certain about events, as if one had lived them before - and willing to pay the price of certainty.

I don't care about the (surprisingly few) little inconsistencies in the plot - all that matters is the lead being true to her heart. And I was genuinely relieved (if not surprised) that she lets go of trying to fight her heart and starts listening to it, rather than hiding in a bottle.

This message runs through the movie, even to the quoting of the 12 step confirmation: "... and the wisdom to know the difference." It is not moralizing, but there appears to be a need to bring it across. If you come away with only the conclusion that there is no love at the bottom of a bottle, you have probably made the director happy.

Apart from this I really enjoyed the director-lead in her roles - she shone, when she played 16, and looked her real age, when she let the energy evaporate, and then managed to merge the two in the final scenes. Good energy manifestation!

In the tradition of French movies, it is with more than a touch of poetry and focus on genuine human emotions, here the touch of lips as the deciding factor and holder of all important memories, that the movie concludes. French movies remember the body and don't focus overly on sex. Very important in Western and specifically European culture, with the present battle raging between explicitness and sensuality: Remember that the body remembers everything, and that we ARE our bodies!

BTW: I DO wonder if the bicycle crash was an accident, but boy, that looked like something you don't walk away from unscathed!

Gone With The Re-wind

[writers_reign · 8/10 · 9 January 2017]

Noemie Lvovsky is a fully paid-up member of what is, for me, a very elite group who cannot be feted highly enough; French female directors, virtually all of whom - Danielle Thompson, Eleanore Faucher, Alexander Leclerc also write or co-write their own screenplays plus some - Nicole Garcia, Agnes Joui, Valerie Lemercier, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi - are actually triple threats inasmuch as they are happy to direct themselves acting in self- penned screenplays, whilst still others like Tony Marshall, Ann Fontaine, Marion Vernoux, have been and/or are still acting for other directors. I should perhaps add that all of the above are content to turn out 'mainstream' films leaving the 'intellectual' fodder to the likes of Marguerite Duras, Clair Denis and other poster girls of the Academic-Pseud axis. Camille Redouble marks the first time Lvovsky has directed herself in her own screenplay - though she has, of course, acted in screenplays she has co-written with Valeria Bruni Tedeschi - and it is a tour de force. There's nothing exactly new about Time Travel in film but Lvovsky employs it in a definite positive way so that whilst she is unable to change the past and prevent her mothers' untimely and unexpected heart attack she is able to say important things to her mother. A very worthy addition to the ranks of the triple-threat French female.

Great french film

[sergelamarche · 10/10 · 3 May 2020]

I was expecting a dull remake of the back in time. It was completely different than the united-statians versions. This film was excessively intelligent, unpredictable, romantic, touching and so well done. Like having the best meal since years. Wow!