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EIFFEL – Review – We Are Movie Geeks

Review

EIFFEL – Review

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Romain Duris (left) as Gustave Eiffel, in a scene from EIFFEL. Courtesy of Blue Fox Entertainment.

Architect and structural engineer Gustave Eiffel built not only Paris’ iconic Eiffel Tower, but designed the interior structure that ensured that our iconic Statue of Liberty would stand up and continue to stand for the long term. These are among the historical tidbits you will learn in EIFFEL, a lush French historical romance/drama built around real events in Eiffel’s life.

EIFFEL is a beautiful period film with polished production values, an attractive cast, and an appealing premise. Since the Eiffel Tower just celebrated its 130 anniversary in December, one might assume EIFFEL is a biopic. It is, partly, but mostly it is a romance set against the backdrop of the building of the Eiffel Tower. The film is loosely based on Eiffel’s true story and centers mostly on the period of Eiffel’s life where he is working on his tower, with flashbacks to twenty years earlier, when as a creative young engineer he met a young woman he now encounters again.

As the film opens, Gustave Eiffel (Romain Duris) is at the peak of his career and being honored by the Americans for his completed work on the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the French people to America. The success of that project has French leaders thinking they also need a big iconic structure to grace their upcoming World’s Fair, and Eiffel looks like just the man for the job. As he launches this grand project, Eiffel, a widower with a grown daughter and younger children, encounters Adrienne (Emma Mackey), a woman he had been in love with 20 years ago but who is now married to a wealthy man involved in the project.

Martin Bourboulon directs this romantic fantasy that is loosely based on some real events in Eiffel’s life, or more accurately, built around them. EIFFEL is more historical romance than biopic. Fans of historical romances will find much to like here, with an attractive couple in lush period settings and costumes, showcased by lovely cinematography, as the story of the couple jumps back and forth in time between their earlier affair and later meeting. It certainly looks beautiful but the story is rather thin and the drama does not do much to really develop depth in the characters, while leans a bit too much on its prettiness. While Duris’ Eiffel shows his age as he goes from young man starting his career to middle-aged man at the height of his field, Emma Mackey is unchanged as she goes from teen living with her her parents in their large country manor house to society wife. Those more interested in history than romance, and hoping to learn more about the man who build the Eiffel Tower will find thinner material here, as Bourboulon puts far more into the romance than the history.

The drama does make some effort to highlight Eiffel’s genius. Structural engineers like Eiffel are the unsung heroes of architecture and public art, the ones whose unseen works ensures those large artistic works, as well as bridges and towers, can stand up to the elements, laying the base (literally) for their endurance and building the hidden infrastructure that supports them. The film does makes some effort to highlight that, as well as Eiffel’s accomplishment in turning what was supposed to be a big sculptural modern symbol for the the Paris World’s Fair but a temporary structure, into a permanent visual symbol of Paris.

The visual beauty of the drama is flawless, and every shot is framed for maximum appeal and the period elements are all lush. However, the film’s structure of moving back and forth in time is a bit clunky at times, with more of the romance story interest in Eiffel’s youth and more of the history interest around the later period as he builds the tower. The actors do a fine job, with Duris as Eiffel having more the work with than Mackey, who often is called on the do little more than look pretty. The drama does delve into Eiffel’s family life a bit, and a nice supporting performance is offered by Armande Boulanger as Eiffel’s supportive but independent daughter Claire but these scenes are too few.

EIFFEL has more to please those who enjoy period romance than history-based drama, although it tries to straddle both, but it is nice to see the man who built the icon symbol of Paris get some cinematic attention.

EIFFEL, in French with English subtitles, opened in theaters on Friday, June 3.

RATING: 2.5 out of 4 stars