French comedy. Eek. The words ‘avec la participation de Sydney Pollack’. Aargh. Well, this isn’t going to rock anyone’s world. Regular readers may be aware of this column’s ongoing struggle with contemporary French cinema, and Orchestra Seats does little to ease our anxieties. Yet another whimsical daisy chain taking in the lives of arty Parisians, watching Cécile De France’s obligitory gamine heroine wander between a classical musician in crisis, an art space and a waitressing job, one yearns for the relative hilarity of the nine minute anal rape scene from Irreversible.
Elsewhere we run into marital trouble, romantic entanglements and cute old people. Middlebrow, middle class and only middling decent, the effect is wholly diuretic, warmly passing through without creating discomfort or anything like a lasting impression. M’eh.