There seems to be a current vogue in French cinema for adding songs to what otherwise would be non-musical films. Faubourg 36 has some sort of excuse inasmuch as it is centred on a Music Hall but Agathe Clery and this one would have worked quite as well as straight films. Of the two this, a tale of espionage, is the least likely candidate but they attempt to justify the songs by having virtually all the principals taking singing lessons with the same tutor; clearly writer-director Ilan Duran Cohen figured he'd been switched as an infant and his real name was Ilan Duran Duran. If the plot is silly to tedious the playing is mostly top drawer especially where Marina Fois and Jeanne Balibar are concerned. Though I saw it with a capacity audience no one has seen fit to comment. Weird.
Review of The Joy of Singing
