The Idol (2002)

Best movie of this year hands down!

the audience applauded

Just perfect...

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

While this is no masterpiece, the many negative comments here are rather perplexing. This is a French film about two foreigners living in Paris, an Australian woman who is quite literally a "drama queen" (she's a theatrical understudy having an affair with her director who happens to be married to the actress she's the understudy for) and a stoic, elderly Chinese man with painful memories of his youth during WWII. Their friendship has a care-giving element(on his part) and an erotic element (on her part). They are too far separated by age and culture to have any kind of conventional romantic relationship, yet they still create a kind of symbiotic but destructive dynamic that lonely and desperate lovers often do.I'm sure neither actor speaks French perfectly, but since they are PLAYING foreigners I don't know why that is a big problem. James Hong who plays the Chinese man is a veteran character actor who handles his character quite well and gives him a quiet tragic depth that is only slowly revealed over the whole course of the film. Leelee Sobieski is a little more problematic. Her self-destructive character is a little ill-defined in the first place, and she has the same problem here she had later in the "Turn of the Screw" adaptation "In a Dark Place": She's tackling a very erotic role here, but she often seems inhibited and uncomfortable (i.e. she has a long but rather innocuous nude scene at one point, but she also rather implausibly keeps her clothes on during all her many sex scenes). She's not exactly in her element here obviously, but she is used better here than she was in her Hollywood films like "Never Been Kissed" where she plays a stunning beauty. . . uh, I mean a gawky loser who can't get a date. God knows, this is better that THAT movie and other crap she was in like "The Glass House".This is certainly not your typical French movie. At one point the Sobieski character gets in trouble with her neighbors (shades from Polanski's "The Tenant") for having sex too loudly. Judging how the beautiful people in French films typically act, you'd think she'd get in trouble for not having sex loudly ENOUGH. And aside from Sobieski and her married lover, most of the people in this movie are actually pretty physically unattractive, certainly not what you'd expect from a FRENCH film. This is an unconventional and interesting film.

Your typical American audience will salivate over a movie like L'Idol. For the simple reason of nudity and sexual overtones, truck loads of fans will pile up and wait in line to see a movie like this. Leelee Sobieski has tempted her fan base for years to star in an "art house" picture like this one. Her natural beauty has kept her a popular actress since the start of her career. The French / Polish actress has fooled around with doing swim suit moments in the Glass House and cover up jobs in the NBC movie Uprising. Now, the world gets to see some brief nudity from an actress who has millions of fans who want to see her "show all." But, the movie hasn't been picked up in America?! Two years later, a movie that should have made millions at the video stores hasn't even stepped foot in the U.S. L'Idol is considered your typical French film where sex is always the setting. Although this movie is not about sex, most of your typical French films has the hidden background of sexual struggle between characters throughout the movie. L'Idol has been greatly over looked and should be on the American video store shelves as soon as possible.

wow...what a bad film. What's up with all these accents! Subtitles please. Sobieski does a decent job but please... what a bad script. Not compelling at all. I was so bored to death I couldn't even sit and watch the end of it. The characters are dull and unlikable. I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone. Don't waste your time and energy on this one!.

i saw the film at the locarno festival and i was truly disappointed by the poor direction and the bad acting . The story doesn't hold up to anything and it's a real bore. It was not even the slightest emotional and i was really itching to see something finally happening on the screen which never really happened...