There's a scene in Jacques Demy's The Young Girls of Rochefort where Gene Kelly suddenly appears with his trademark smile and begins a delightful song and dance routine about his travels around the world and his love for France. And then his number ends all too quickly and we are left with this hollow, vapid excuse for a musical film. I suppose that Demy intended for this to be an ode to classic Hollywood musicals (why else would he cast Gene Kelly). But the entire production enters an uncanny valley of plastic music and dance. It's a film about a beautiful pair of French twins who dance around and fall in love with visiting sailors. Their mother owns a local restaurant and dreams of lovers lost. It's all so saccharine that my teeth began to hurt. The music is charming...at first. But eventually it all smushes together into what feels like one prolonged musical number that never, EVER ends. The highly saturated color photography makes everything seem like a Barbie playhouse. And really, that's the best metaphor or this film: an illusionary dollhouse.
5/10
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