Review: 'Coup de Chance' an effective thriller, Woody Allen's 50th film

MPI International, 2024.

Woody Allen's 50th film is one of his better ones, with "Coup de Chance" landing as an effective thriller that relies mostly on - what else? - the script's inherent wit.

Grade: B

More "Match Point" than "Manhattan," "Coup de Chance" is no comedy. But it is thoroughly a Woody Allen film. While the vast majority of Allen's past work has been set in New York City, he has shown a similar penchant for Paris, which is entirely where this French-language film takes place.

Chance-encounters and coincidences are at the center of this forbidden romance...random "fate" run-ins are not necessarily a ground-breaking topic when it comes to this kind of movie, but when done effectively - like "Coup de Chance" is - it's enough to keep our interest all the way through.

The film has many charismatic performances, but it's the spoken word that drives the story. Per your normal Woody Allen film, you are not going to get car chases, action, or nail-biting sequences that keep you on the edge of your seat. These characters exist in city parks, swank cocktail parties and art gallery exhibitions. The actors are there not so much to "act" but to exist as vessels for Allen to say what he has to say.

Fanny (Lou de Laage) and Alain (Niels Schneider) literally bump into one another on a busy Paris sidewalk, after having not seen each other in several years. You see, Alain had secretly longed for Fanny back in the day, and he takes this chance meeting to be a strong signal that their fates are intermingled. The only problem is that Fanny is seemingly happily married, to a shrewd business man, Jean (Melvil Poupaud), who is so mysterious that even Fanny doesn't quite know what he does for a living. Fanny though, cannot stop thinking about Alain. She begins to realize what is missing from her marriage, but Jean is no dummy. He's a dangerous, powerful man who has even had a past business-partner "disappear," and if he were to find out about Franny and Alain...

There may be one-too-many twists in "Coup de Chance," but the early twists are shocking enough to keep you invested in the story. Put in another way, if you happen to be a fan of Woody Allen movies, you're likely to enjoy this movie and its simplistic, "old school" approach to filmmaking...an approach that Allen has never quite swayed from since the days of "Annie Hall."

Say or think what you will about Woody Allen the man, but as a filmmaker, he is one of the few whose films are identifiable by a single frame, a character, a line of dialogue. He doesn't do everything , but he stays with what he knows and understands how to craft a story.

Is "Coup de Chance" Woody Allen's final film? Maybe. Maybe not. After 58 years and 50 films, Allen still stubbornly clings to a method of movie-making that has long been left behind. His films no longer make splashes like they once did, but the small ripples they do create feel surprisingly comforting, especially in this current sea of convoluted streaming services and Hollywood blockbusters.

Grade: B

Genre: Thriller, Romance, Drama.
Run Time: 1 hour 36 minutes.
Rated PG-13.

Starring: Lou de Laage, Niels Schneider, Melvil Poupaud.

Written and Directed by Woody Allen ("Annie Hall," "Match Point," "Blue Jasmine," "Manhattan," "To Rome With Love," "Bullets Over Broadway," "Crimes and Misdemeanors"). 

"Coup de Chance" is now available On Demand.