Bel Ami

If I can finish this review by not calling Bel Ami “the poor mans Dangerous Liaisons” it’ll be a miracle as this is exactly what first time directors Declan Donnellan and Nick Omerod give us. Based on Guy de Maupassant’s 19th century French novel of the same name we follow Georges Duroy (Robert Pattinson), a soldier returning from war, who decides to improve his social status and empty pockets by seducing a number of wealthy women (which include Uma Thurman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Christina Ricci) from the higher echelons of Parisian society. In terms of storyline, that’s about it. Twihards may flock to this regardless of it’s lack of story line because of Pattinson’s involvement and I was intrigued myself to see what else the boy can do after his surprisingly impressive performance in Remember Me. Sadly, it’s back to Wooden Robert here, as Pattinson spends the entire film with an odd pout / leer / smirk combination on his face and instead of coming across as a charming seductive force he's more like an ugly small time gangster with embarrassing chat up lines. The main problem the film has is it’s complete lack of sympathetic characters, with Pattinson himself describing Duroy as “completely amoral”. Everyone just sleeps and cheats with everyone else and then they look for comfort afterwards. No dice I’m afraid, though Scott Thomas does give a performance that garners some heart from the audience. This doesn’t fail though just because its premise is morally suspect, its more to do with the fact that it’s just plain dull with Donnellan and Omerod’s inexperience as first time helmers showing as they don’t bother to add anything to the story as they pretty much just point and shoot. Some marks to the production and costume designers though as 1880’s Paris comes alive. It’s just a shame that Pattinson doesn’t.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
Complete the sentence: The poor man’s….Rating: 3/10.