Alain Moreau (Gérard Depardieu) is a past his prime singer who plies his trade in ballrooms and retirement homes, selling CDs of his crooning to his fans for extra cash. His fans tend to be middle aged, or older, ladies who will ask for autographs and loyally attend his shows and dances, but he's aware that his kind of entertaining is not for anyone younger than forty, so when one night he notices an argument on the dancefloor while he's performing he is intrigued. Doubly so when he notices that the woman causing the trouble can't be much older than thirty: what is she doing here?
Depardieu received some of the best reviews he had enjoyed in a while for The Singer, or Quand j'étais chanteur as it was known in France (the name of a well-known tune there). And it was true he put in a nuanced portrayal of someone who could have simply been a cheesy caricature - you can see how the material could just as easily been made into a comedy as it was a drama. Yet writer and director Xavier Giannoli took Alain very seriously, acknowledging that in spite of most people outwith his circle of fans probably dismissing him, there was a heart and soul there inside that bulky frame.
All good intentions, but this didn't quite alter the fact that this was another of those efforts where an ageing, male movie star was offered the chance to romance a far younger and more glamorous actress who looked to be way out of his league. Giannoli tackled this offputting and all too overemployed device by making it plain for the audience to see that the woman, Marion (Cécile De France), is resistant to his charms for quite a while, viewing Alain as a corny lounge singer with a groaning line in chat up techniques. Which would be all very well, but she still jumps into bed with him on the first night they meet.
Giannoli tried to make up for this by pointing out that first, we had to believe that Alain was smitten, and having the chance to sleep with this beautiful woman a couple of hours after singing to her only cements those feelings, and second, that Marion regrets her actions the next morning, and does not wish to pursue him any further. This does not deter Alain, however, and once he finds out she works for his old friend Bruno (Mathieu Amalric), an estate agent, he begins asking her to take him to see properties, ostensibly because he wishes to move house, but actually because it's the only way he can get to meet her regularly.
Before you start thinking, "You dirty old man, Gérard", there are other factors to be taken into account. Marion is not some together career woman, she's actually pretty messed up thanks to a divorce and a young son who is not interested in his mother as a result, so she is brittle and turned off the idea of romance, needing a lot of coaxing before she defrosts even a little. Alain is the man to do this if anyone is, and the film has a faith in the power of cheap music, and the singers who perform it for that matter, that is disarming in its way. The only trouble is, in taking its characters so seriously, its quiet approach to them makes for some fairly muted drama, and an ending that eschews any conventional wrapping up doesn't help much. Best to appreciate the acting, ponder over Alain's pet goat which appears to have the run of his house, and wonder if Gérard would be any good in the Eurovision Song Contest. Music by Alexandre Desplat.
