Bryan McIntyre

For the Press-Citizen

Michel Gondry's Mood Indigo is the perfect movie for people who enjoy two straight hours of quirky visual gags instead of a compelling story.Gondry releases an onslaught of whimsy that rapidly turns from endearing to mind numbing as this two hour film feels like an eternity.

It's the cinematic equivalent of being stuck in a car with a toddler who keeps repeating the same phrase over and over again. By the end we just want to get out.

The story focuses on the romance between Colin (Romain Duris) and Chloe (Audrey Tatou).The two fall in love and get married and all is bliss until Chloe inexplicably becomes ill from a flower growing in her lungs. The plot is meant to be a tragic love story, but instead is a strange hallucination full of character we are unable to relate to.There is absolutely no motivation behind the characters' actions except for what's in the script, and the script is nothing more than a vapid sequence of scenes intercut with bizarre moments such as talking birds, cathedral go cart races, and a piano that mixes cocktails, none of which have any bearing on the story whatsoever. They're shoved into the movie in what I can only assume to be Gondry's attempt at humor, but all they really do is cause confusion.

By far the most glaring fault of the film is its tone as we become utterly baffled as to what we're supposed to be feeling. The tone shifts from seizure inducing buoyancy at one moment to horribly depressing in the next. Mood Indigo has no idea what it wants to be.It's not that having a strange visual style is bad. Odd visual choices can work in a film. Yet like every other element of cinema, a certain visual style works when it helps tell the story.

Being quirky for quirky's sake has the same effect as filling the movie with constant explosions. It overloads our senses, numbs our brains, and takes us out of the picture.

The larger issue of Mood Indigo is not the over indulgent style. It's that after a while the film becomes dull. It throws so many needless gags on the screen that it ignores the basic element every film needs: a connection with the audience.

Ultimately we go to the movies to feel something.Even if a film infuriates us, it's still a reaction. If we leave a movie feeling nothing then what was the point of even going? We could just stay home and watch paint dry and it would have the same effect. Whether it's joy, wonder, or excitement a movie needs to have an effect on the audience. The worst films are the ones that bore us.