Paris, late 1890s. Fin de siècle. A melting pot of creativity and exciting controversy. There is a leg kick on the Moulin Rouge, Anton Chechov reads poetry on a brothel, the Dreyfuss business breezes, Sarah Bernhardt reigns and the Lumière brothers premiere on the world's first film: The workers leave the factory - causing the culturally interested Frenchmen to erupt in unison "Mon Dieux"!
A golden era, like this in the rearview mirror, but not for the young playwright Edmond Rostand, who hangs himself out by writing less successful theater sets whose returns can barely sustain his wife and children. In addition, he cannot write ordinary prose, everything that comes out of his brain does so in rhyme. The cramp spasms the brain.
As the cultural expert knows, happiness will soon turn. Edmond Rostand is the man who in 1897 hatched the now über-classic romantic comedy Cyrano de Bergerac - the story of the 17th century poet with a huge nose, and an unresolved love for the beautiful Roxane.
The play has gone for full houses ever since. More than 2000 times the play has been played, we learn in the subtitles, and the filmizations are many, but this time it is about Edmond himself. However, it would be a shame, or rather wrong, to call it a biographical film, rather the author's existence has received a Shakespeare in love treatment. Yes, if one is to be tough, it is actually something of a copy of John Madden's 1998 film.
There we see how William Shakespeare is tamped with writing spasms, promising his financiers a piece he did not start writing (but has the working title Romeo and Ethel ...) but then suddenly, when the already married poet falls in love with a young woman with actress dreams, it loosens - and his writes one of his most classic works about impossible love.
Basically the same things happen here. But, unlike most other colleagues, I did not go into the spate of ecstasy over Shakespeare in love, the inventions of French director Alexis Michalik do not give rise to any major convulsions of indignation in my frame of reference. After 20 years, you can pretty much be allowed to snap a little (much) of audience success from across the channel.
The atmosphere is good anyway, on the verge of fatherhood, when Cyrano and I (the movie) are pushing themselves towards the expected end. The script is marinated in a kind of childish and dated cluelessness where prostitutes are called joy girls, and seems quite happy in their profession, and the villains are modest at Björnligan level.
In short, quite pointless but at least a little entertaining, like a trip through a spirited Madame Tussauds.
But there are clearly better works on that theme. Especially when it comes to fin de siècle. If you want to see a real beauty about the enchanted time when the French capital was invaded by an army of creators, it is Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris to look for - a comedy that cracks in the joints of all clever inventions and resurrected celebrities.