Les Poupee Russes

Russian Dolls, Cedric Klapisch’s 2005 follow up to L’Auberge Espagnole is enjoyable to watch but does not necessarily hit home as hard as the original. While seeing L’Auberge was not a required pre-requisite to Russian Dolls, it was certainly helpful. “If "L'Auberge Espagnole" was an idealized version of a universal experience (college, finding oneself, etc.) that almost anyone can relate to, "Russian Dolls" captures the equally recognizable wall you hit later. When we left off “Xavier was a shy French economics major pining for his girlfriend Martine (Audrey Tautou) back home, but excited about his new life and friends. By the end, he was a young man who knew what he wanted — to be a writer.” In the Russian Dolls, we meet Xavier who is now in his early 30’s, and is back in Paris, writing pointless articles, bad TV movies and memoirs for illiterate celebrities. His love life is floundering too. While the experiences are recognizable the movie lacks the focus of the original. St. Petersburg wasn’t nearly as enticing as Barcelona and Xavier’s indecisiveness became frustrating rather than endearing. As in "L'Auberge Espagnole," Klapisch gets his money's worth from his editing software, using split screens and other effects to conjure the stop, start, rewind feeling of writing. Xavier begins the story at the end. The movie was far too self-involved to convey any sort of grandiose message or relay any themes. As L’auberge espagnole was almost a public service announcement for globalization, Les Poupee Russes, or the Russian Dolls almost picked cities at random that provided very little help to the film. Rather than acting as characters that propelled the story forward, the cities almost worked against the film making it more boring than it needed to be. Overall the movie was decent, yet not better than its original version.