French Toast (2015)

Moviecut—French Toast

Once you get past the fact that the main character is a manipulative busy body and that the dad could have saved himself the grief of the lie by tossing the diary, then you're good to go. Beautiful scenery. Extremely grateful for all attempts to be clever rather than crude.

This is a complicated, different, tri-lingual love story.( Sort of!) It is set, oddly enough, in both South Africa and Paris and the dialogue is in Afrikaans, French and English. (Even though major segments are set in South Africa, there are no black actors/characters. That seemed odd.) The camera work in Paris has captured the essence and character of that beautiful city. Although there is a brief glimpse of Capetown's stunnig Table Mountain, the South African portions are not as wide-ranging as those in Paris. Pity! Because Capetown is also a very beautiful city. The story is a rather involved, unlikely sort of tale yet intriguing, compelling, suspenseful, entertaining and beautiful. The characters are well drawn and believable. There is romance without graphic sex. There is humour, tension and beauty. And the whole thing is beautifully filmed. But the story gets rather puzzling and complicated at the end. But no matter! It's still a unique and intriguing story. I would have voted it a ten except for the limp and misleading title. But it is one of the my top notch films so far this year.

This is like a really bad soap opera with terrible acting. Also full of stupid French clichés and sappy music. Dialogues are insipid. Really nothing to save it. Avoid wasting your time!

Great movie but the ending was a bit of a disappointment!

Romantic comedies aren't supposed to be stellar narratives or strong on character development, but sometimes, they are superb on all fronts. Not French Toast, despite some decent acting, cinematography, and direction. The trouble lay in the writing, especially the climactic scene, which left us confused. The music was frequently intrusive and one or two of the characters were really too cliched to care about. Interestingly, for a film set in 1980s South Africa, there was not a single person of colour in the cast. All that said, I appreciated being able to hear Afrikaans in a film--a comparatively very rare experience.

Hmmm... there are some real strengths in this caper; mostly a good storyline, scenery of south africa and of paris. some fun moments, as Lisa and JeanPierre romp around town. there are also some large plot holes... the odds of the huge coincidences that occur. i don't want to get too specific to spoil any surprises, but by the end, its a little much. people in the film fall for each other very quickly. this feels like the basic premise of real family secrets and having unknown siblings in other countries really is someone's own story. but then they embellished on the details. and there are some very confusing moments. I had to turn on subtitles, since they speak afrikaans, english, and french. Lots of krugers in the credits.... seems to be a family project. writer, director, cast, even the producers. on netflix, so i also used rewind a couple times. it's mostly good, but has some weaknesses. like any film, i guess.

I was a bit skeptical when I heard the Afrikaner but I plowed through... The main actress was pretty and made me want to watch further. I hoped that her journey would be interesting. I ignored the quality of the acting which is... uneven...? Or is that too generous? I also ignored the bad music... small budget movies usually cannot afford good soundtracks... ...the scenes shot in South Africa are set on the family farm so... ok... no black people. But then she gets to Paris and no brown or black people in the streets or in the subway? Really? That's when I decided to stop the movie. The chemistry wasn't there & white washing killed it for me. Don't get me wrong I skipped around to the end because I am a sucker for happy endings (no matter how bleached out the movie is) but there was just too much bad to make up for the good... in my humble opinion.

Apart from lack of storyline the dialogue is mostly in French and Africanne so unless you can understand either it's very hard to follow.. Very disappointing.