Camille Rewinds (2012, Noémie Lvovsky) (Patreon)

56/100

So close to being a French remake of Peggy Sue Got Married that the apparent absence of any lawsuit mystifies me. Most of the same narrative beats appear, with a similar focus on "Why am I still so attracted to this guy despite knowing what a disaster our future marriage will be?" (Not sure whether it's coincidence or deliberate irony that Camille finds herself reliving 1985, the year of Peggy Sue's present day.) That's an inherently compelling premise, though, and Lvovsky's charming performance in the title role makes for a reasonably fun rehash. Kathleen Turner was 32 in 1986, definitely an adult but still quite young; Lvovsky, by contrast, was pushing 50 when she made this, and watching Camille gradually regress into teen demeanor generates plenty of smiles, if few outright laughs. Considerably less effective is her choice to cast 45-year-old Samir Guesmi as Camille's ex-husband/childhood boyfriend, who hasn't traveled through time and hence doesn't benefit from our suspension of disbelief—he just looks decades too old to be in high school, for no good reason. (Nicolas Cage was all of 21 or 22, made up to look older for the '85 sequences. Made way more sense.) In any case, the romance here winds up feeling secondary to Camille's relationship with her mother (César-nominated Yolande Moreau), who had died of cancer shortly after this period of Camille's life; Camille gets the opportunity to retroactively express her love and gratitude, as well as smuggle her older self a cassette recording of Mom's voice (though good luck finding something to play it on, Camille 2012—I've been there). But even that echoes Peggy Sue and her long-dead grandma. A bewildering choice for NYFF, frankly...and that's not even considering the ghastly anachronism of "New Slang" playing in the background of a 1985 party scene. (Seriously. It follows Banararama's "Venus," which is also anachronistic—released 1986—but is at least from the right era!)