MOVIE REVIEW : There’s Little to Latch Onto in Rochant’s ‘Love Without Pity’

It’s possible that the young Jean-Luc Godard or Francois Truffaut or Eric Rohmer could have made something genuine out of the Left Bank dallying that occupies most of “Love Without Pity.” But writer-director Eric Rochant isn’t remotely in their league, and his lead actor, Hippolyte Girardot, isn’t the galvanizing ‘90s star he’s clearly intended to be. (At least not for American audiences--the film is a big hit in France.) To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen on Dan Quayle: Hippolyte, you’re no Jean-Paul Belmondo.

This wouldn’t be so bad if he were his own man, but there’s something generic about his Gallic beguilements. Playing a character nicknamed Hippo, he spends most of the movie in a daze of amour , but he’s not soulful enough to give the movie (at the Beverly Center Cineplex) much poetic passion.

“Love Without Pity” (rated R for strong language) is about how Hippo, a womanizing smoothie who lives with his drug-dealing younger brother in a run-down bachelor pad, finds true love. Nathalie (Mireille Perrier) isn’t like the others he’s tantalized. She’s diffident and coy and, unlike Hippo, she actually has a job--as an interpreter for a Russian economist. She’s wise to Hippo’s maneuverings until he hooks her with a prime piece of romantic falderal: He takes her out to his balcony and claps his hands at the precise moment the lights click off on the Eiffel Tower.

This Houdini-like feat seals their passion, but things cool when she accepts an invitation to teach at MIT for a year. Will he go with her or remain in Paris?

Considering the fact that he spends an inordinate amount of time sprawled on car hoods chain-smoking Gauloises, you’d think Hippo would jump at the chance. Instead, we’re treated to a double dose of plot padding before things take their unsatisfying course. The film’s only fascination is inadvertent: For American audiences at least, the movie offers up a sight-seeing tour of Left Bank youth.

They grumble about the impending “New Europe,” deal a little cocaine, listen to rap music. A terrific movie could be made about this generation, but it requires a director with the ability to look beneath the faddish posturings of youth. “Love Without Pity” isn’t terrible, but it’s so purposefully mild that it wafts away while you’re watching it. Is this the best French cinema has to offer us, or is the good stuff being left behind?

‘Love Without Pity’

Hippolyte: Girardot Hippo

Mireille Perrier: Nathalie

Yvan Attal: Xavier

An Orion Classics release. Director Eric Rochant. Producer Alain Rocca. Screenplay Rochant. Cinematographer Pierre Novion. Editor Michele Darmon. Costumes Zelia Van Den Bulke. Music Gerard Torikian. Set decorator Thierry Francois. In French, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (strong language).