Lucie sur Seine reminds me of some of the films I watched when I would attend the Chicago Film Festival. The film holds the viewer just interested enough so as to feel like he or she has not wasted his or her time, but it does not leave one with much.
The plot begins like a thriller. Jean is a young married man working a boring job as a delivery driver of hand towels for businesses in an immigrant heavy section of Paris. Wanting money to buy a truck and go into business, Jean decides to rob one of the stores on his route. The robbery goes badly. Jean is unmasked by an accountant. He kills both her and a security guard. He is also seen by a woman at the store (he glimpses her fleeing). He believes it to be a young free spirited Arab immigrant whom he has a crush on. At this point the film abandons the thriller elements and becomes a drama. Jean follows the witness around and falls in love her. The woman has a younger brother of fourteen who is the leader of a gang of immigrant boys. Their parents believe the woman is a bad influence on her brother. Although the police are still investigating the murders (they believe it was committed by one of the immigrants), the focus of the movie has become the problems of an immigrant family.
Lucie sur Seine is simply fair. Also, the filmmaker could have made certain elements clearer than he did. For instance, the immigrant woman is introduced only after the killings, in spite of the fact that Jean is supposed to have a crush on her.
Incidentally, the print I saw translated the film's title as, Forbidden to Those Under Thirteen. What is forbidden? Murder? Robbery?
