Gigola

Lou Doillion as Gigola.

The French author Laure Charpentier decided to direct the film version of her book, said to be based upon her life that she originally wrote in 1972, after having little success at finding someone she could trust to interpret her written work to the big screen. Set in Paris in the 1960’s Gigola (2010) evokes the boredom and chemical abuse that seems to attach it self to people of all sexes that sell themselves for sex.  It follows the life of Georges who after the suicide of her lover becomes a lesbian gigolo who uses the working name Gigola, earning her living by picking up rich and frustrated older middle class women. The film gamely attempts character depth by looking into her love life and unhappy relationships with her devout Catholic mother and her gambling addicted father. But in fact what we get is a rather dull movie in which Lou Doillion’s Gigola roams around Paris dressed as a man looking completely miserable and frequenting a club where most of the women are also parading around dressed as men looking equally as miserable!!!

Again we have a film that lacks both excitement and tension unless you count waiting for Ms Doillion to remove her kit? Two of Pedro Almodova’s regular actresses (Rossy de Palma and Marisa Paredes) try there best to raise this film above the level of mediocrity with out much success. More a display of penis envy than the sensual erotic film it’s pretending to be.