Lisa Johnson Mandell’s French Exit review says even the many and great gifts of Michelle Pfeiffer can’t overcome haphazard directing and a low-grade tone.

So many of us were looking forward to seeing the ever radiant Michelle Pfeiffer return to the A-List in a significant leading role. We all know what she’s capable of, and the savory material included in Canadian novelist Patrick DeWitt’s bestselling novel seemed to have been written specifically for her.

Unfortunately, so many of us will also be disappointed when we see the big screen adaptation. Where it could have been an effervescent, dry champagne of a film, it lacks bubble and mirth, and just goes down as dry. Characters are quirky and laconic in a Wes Anderson sort of way, but they regrettable lack a charm and engagement factor — they come off as distant and, well, mostly just obscurely odd.

Billed as a dark comedy, French Exit is the story of a distracted widow and her young adult son, both suffering from almost terminal ennui, even though they’ve run off to Paris in the wake of their husband and father’s abrupt, sudden and, frankly suspicious, death.

Deciding what to do with their inheritance, their wealthy, aimless lives and a mysterious feline is the goal, and the directions they choose are at times mildly amusing, but never much more than that.

Even though the cast is extraordinarily game and talented — in addition to Pfeiffer it includes Lucas Hedges as the hapless son, Tracy Letts, Danielle MacDonald, Valerie Mahaffey and a paculiar cat— the characters are not very likable, and all are mostly indecipherable. You can’t help but wonder why they’re all putting up with each other.

I’m lay most of the the blame on director Azazel Jacobs, who just couldn’t manage to bring life into or add cohesion to the script.

Still, Michelle Pfeiffer. She transcends the vagueries and  blandness of the rest of the film, and makes French Exit worth watching. Not necessarily worth running out to the theater to see, but it’s work on a slow night.

Rated R

1 Hour 50 Minutes

If this French Exit review encourages you to brave a theater, find out where it’s playing at Fandango.com.

Lisa Johnson Mandell’s French Exit review says even the many and great gifts of Michelle Pfeiffer can’t overcome haphazard directing and a low-grade tone.