Mood Indigo (film)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Mood Indigo (L'Écume des jours) is a 2013 French romantic drama film co-written and directed by Michel Gondry and co-written and produced by Luc Bossi, starring Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou. It is an adaptation of Boris Vian's 1947 novel Froth on the Daydream.
Plot
Colin has a very pleasant life: he is rich, he loves the food his cook makes (Nicolas), he loves his pianocktail (contraction of piano and cocktail, a word invented by Vian) and his friend Chick.
One day while having lunch with Chick, Chick tells him that he met a girl named Alise with whom he has a common passion: the writer Jean-Sol Partre (a spoonerism of Jean-Paul Sartre who was Boris Vian's friend). Colin meets Chloe at a party Chick invited him to. They fall in love, marry, but Chloe becomes ill during their honeymoon. As time passes, Chloe's condition deteriorates while the relationship between Chick and Alise turns sour.
Colin spends his fortune on treating Chloe, which causes him to passionately fire his cook and sell his pianocktail, and he slips into poverty as Chloe passes away. His friend Chick spends both his and Colin's money on anything that has to do with Partre, and Chick loses his job due to a Partre-related incident and is later killed when resisting law-enforcement officers. Alise tracks down Partre himself and kills him.
The aesthetic of the film changes from colorful and whimsical to monochromatic and tragic as the film progresses. These effects are observed most acutely in Colin's home, which decays supernaturally, and his mouse, who reluctantly tolerates the house until he abandons Colin.
Cast
- Romain Duris as Colin
- Audrey Tautou as Chloé
- Gad Elmaleh as Chick
- Aïssa Maïga as Alise
- Omar Sy as Nicolas
- Charlotte Le Bon as Isis
- Sacha Bourdo as The mice
- Natacha Régnier as The remedy saleswoman
- Philippe Torreton as Jean-Sol Partre
- Alain Chabat as Gouffé
- Zinedine Soualem as The plant manager
- Laurent Lafitte as The society's owner
- August Darnell as Duke Ellington
