The Odyssey (2016)

The Worst Film Ever

Excellent adaptation.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

This film is magical. The cinematography is mesmerizing and the shots under water and in Antarctica are especially powerful. The actors are excellent and the story is made more human by showing Jacques as a man with flaws, not just the celebrated hero the world made him out to be. It is a beautiful art film with an important message about conservation, so don't bother going if you're looking for Fast and the Furious. Worth watching if you aren't!

It's a very well done film. It certainly wasn't easy to squeeze half a man's life into 2 hours but I think they've kept a good balance between the beautiful under-the-sea shots and the family ups and downs and the financial challenges he faced. Obviously, they did not have much time for any in-depth analysis, mostly walked us through the main milestones of his life. But the film is shot and edited perfectly. The scenes just flow from one to another, speeding up and slowing down as needed, as kids grow, as decisions need to be made, as people leave and return. The film is not all rosy and it did not shy away from some of the less pleasant sides of the great man. But I think it was handled with good tact, they did not dwell on it but kind of just mentioned it, hey, we are all human after all. And of course, there are enough shots for you to go wow that's a fricking beautiful world down there.

This is a beautiful, poignant film, which artfully uses a (true) family story to magnify a larger global tragedy, of which we are all a part. The audience of which I was a part, was moved to silence and stillness at the end of the film. I left the movie house changed for the better and in deep introspection.Unfortunately, the film is only available in French, as far as I know, which limits its exposure. The film provides much food for thought and reflection as well as impressive images of our beautiful and precious world, which we so ashamedly, if without malice, neglect. As you can tell, I highly recommend this film.

"L'odyssée", also known as "Jacques", is a French 2-hour movie from this year written and directed by Jerôme Salle, the man who wrote the original work that the Depp/Jolie movie "The Tourist" is based on. And even without major awards recognition, this film we have here is still among Salle's most known now. This is probably mostly due to the decent cast (Wilson, Niney, Tautou) and also because of the popularity of the central character here. It is about Jacques-Yves Cousteau, one of the biggest explorers, especially when it comes to sea and underwater expeditions. But this is only partially what the film is about. There is major focus in here on how he struggles in the relationship with his son Philippe and how it takes a major change in JYC's approach to his profession until he finally manages to bond with his son. We also find out about the man's relationship with women, especially his wife (played by Audrey Tautou from "Amélie"). And of course the job plays a really big role. We see how Cousteau becomes a big star in the United States and you could see this movie here almost as a biopic, even if it ends a long time before his death.And still, this film is almost as much about the character played by Pierre Niney (one of France's rising stars right now), namely Cousteau's son. We see him in his very early years, but also later on as an adult and how his approach to environment and science is fundamentally different compared to his father's idea. The professional life of Commandant Cousteau constantly seems to get in the way between the two. Anyway, overall, I enjoyed the watch here. Maybe it was a good decision by Salle to focus more on the conflicts between the characters and keep the environmental message in the background for almost the entire film, but then I'd also have hoped for a different ending as these last words shown on the screen sound almost as if this was the core message of the film, which it definitely wasn't. So it is not a perfect watch, but still a fairly good one and I learned many new things about Cousteau, his life and his family. The real life characters make it an even more exciting watch. And lets be honest, there is some major irony to Cousteau Jr.'s death caused by technology and he still ends up dead in the water, a reference that shows how these two worlds simply do not fit together in terms of what nature may have in mind for us. I liked all of the acting in here and while there was an occasional weakness in the story, I certainly give this film a thumbs-up. This film has probably the best trailer I have seen all year, so maybe my expectations were simply too high. In any case, it was a satisfying watch and I think that you should check it out if you get a chance to see it. It also never drags, which is a great achievement for a film with this runtime.