‘Finally’: Venice Review

Dir: Claude Lelouch. France. 2024. 129mins

A successful man who has lost his ability to lie embarks on an unlikely road trip across France in Finally, the latest work from French maestro Claude Lelouch. Premiering out of competition in Venice, this jocular musical comedy-drama is something of a treasure trove for Lelouch fans, containing not only explicit as well as more easter-egg-like references to many of the director’s previous 50 features, but also a sprawling cast composed of familiar faces. Indeed, there’s a strong sense that Lelouch is trying to create a kind of synthesis of his work for one last outing on the big screen. Though this, as well as some of France’s most picturesque backdrops, should provide potential marketing hooks, especially for older arthouse patrons, the final result isn’t quite a home run.

Something of a treasure trove for Lelouch fans

Though Finally practically overflows with actors who have worked with Lelouch over the decades, comedian Kad Merad (Welcome To The Sticks), who plays the film’s protagonist, is a fresh face in Lelouch’s filmography (which includes the 1967 Palme d’Or and Oscar-winning A Man And A Woman). Merad plays a middle-aged man called Lino Massaro, who turns out to be the son of Lino Ventura’s character of the same name from 1972’s Money Money Money (a critical flop-turned-cult item with a very adventurous plot indeed). Lelouch also splices in uncredited material from his 1973 film Happy New Year, in which Ventura co-starred alongside Françoise Fabian – who in Finally stars as Merad’s character’s mother. Sandrine Bonnaire, on her third film with the director, appears here as the daughter of Nicole Courcel’s character in Money Money Money, who is the half-sister of Lino.

If all this sounds complicated, Finally – credited to three screenwriters alongside Lelouch – is told very fluidly and would pose no problem for someone who’s not familiar with the director’s work (even if the film is most likely to appeal to his fans). What’s more, Lelouch seems to take an almost perverse pleasure in not immediately revealing what kind of protagonist we are really dealing with, smartly and humorously drawing parallels between the performance aspects of attorneys in court, people in real life and, of course, actors in his movies. 

It sets a gently playful tone that’s reinforced by the chosen genre, which the film itself announces from the outset is a “musical fable brought to life by Claude Lelouch.” That said, the term is used quite loosely, as this fable’s morals are hard to pin down exactly and, in the end, there are just five jazzy songs — the trumpet plays a key supporting role in the story as well — over the course of a generous, two-hour-plus running time, during which Lino, who can speak nothing but the truth, leaves everything behind to embark on an unfiltered journey across France. 

The sheer filmmaking pleasure and mastery of Lelouch behind the camera is especially evident in the first hour or so, with Stephane Mazalaigue’s editing deserving a special mention for how it keeps all of the different narrative layers laid out so clearly. But the plot’s necessity to build to some kind of logical finale with increasingly higher stakes causes an initially smooth-running train to increasingly splutter.  

Non-French audiences might be taken aback by how a film, in 2024, seems to want to defend prostitution as a solution for lonely men (never women). What’s even stranger is how it then seemingly tries but never quite succeeds in equating that with the actions of married men who take an interest in women who are already married to someone else (which, of course, shouldn’t make their cuckolded husbands jealous). This requires a level of mental gymnastics that even one of the great chroniclers of the love lives of the French cannot convincingly pull off.

Visually as well as in terms of its soundtrack, credited to trumpet player/composer Ibrahim Maalouf and lyricist Didier Barbelivien, Lelouch’s latest is glossy and was clearly made on a comfortable budget. But while we can admire his ambition to create what the French might call a ‘film-testament’, the final result is less the sparkling apotheosis of a lifetime of filmmaking than a work that feels more like a greatest-hits album – more of a postscript than the real deal.