Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Constance Meyer
Starring: Gérard Depardieu, Déborah Lukumuena, Lucas Mortier, Megan Northam, Caroline Donnelly
Ever since the breakout success of 2011's Intouchables, French cinema has offered several similar movies with such odd couple
dynamics. The latest, Robust, comes from writer/director Constance Meyer and boasts two
heavyweight (both literal and metaphorical) performances from Gallic
screen legend Gérard Depardieu and rising star
Déborah Lukumuena.
Depardieu is a natural fit for the role of Georges, a cantankerous
aging actor who finds himself assigned a new bodyguard when his regular
man is called away. The job goes to 24-year-old Aïssa (Lukumuena), who
is a promising wrestler when she's not performing her day job.
Thankfully Robust avoids the sort of clichéd dynamic you
might expect from its combination of a grouchy rich old white man and a
young black woman. Indeed, race is never mentioned, and once Georges
gets over the initial shock of being assigned a female bodyguard,
neither is gender.
This isn't so much a movie about a clash of cultures or personality
types so much as it's about two people who seem very different but learn
they have a lot in common. As an actor, Georges spends much of his life
pretending to be someone else, and as a bodyguard, Aïssa is required to
suppress her personality and blend into the background. Georges'
profession requires him to be larger than life, while Aïssa's asks her
to be invisible, but they're both essentially performers.
Once the pair accept one another, Robust becomes a
charming drama about an initially unlikely friendship. When they're
apart, we see that neither Georges nor Aïssa are particularly content
with their lot in life. There's a wonderful scene in which Georges
rudely interrupts Aïssa's date with a co-worker she's been sleeping
with. Georges asks the man if he loves Aïssa, which leads her to speak
one of the saddest lines I've heard in quite some time – "I know he
doesn't love me, I just didn't need to hear it." At the opposite end of
life as his young minder, Georges has no such time to waste on flings.
Everything has to mean something at his point in life.
Unfortunately, the movie itself doesn't seem to share Georges' idea
that time is precious, as it wastes much of its first hour on subplots
and details that ultimately prove inconsequential. It functions best
when Depardieu and Lukumuena are sharing the screen, their characters
pretending to ignore the other's advice but taking it all in
nonetheless. If this were the pilot for a TV show, its structure would
be forgivable as we'd be aware we'll get to spend more time with these
two people. As it is, Robust ends just at the point when
we're finally beginning to warm to its protagonists.
