Le grand jeu

Pierre Blum has seen decidedly better times, some fifteen years ago when he made the big time with his debut novel. Since then he’s an also-ran of the belles lettres, as well as a failure in his private life. While attending the wedding of an ex, he meets a charismatic elder gentleman gambler, Joseph Paskin, who offers him a strange but decidedly intriguing-sounding job: he will pay him to ghost-write a book for him – a call to arms-cum-manual for insurrection.
The film has a cheeky je ne sais quoi, in that erstwhile Rohmer-assistant and graduate of the Mac-Mahon Academy of Cinephilia, Nicolas Pariser, makes fun of successful debuts, wunderkinder and golden boys in a debut that scored nicely at award time. And deservedly so, for Le grand jeu is an icily elegant allegory on seduction, vanity and the past’s long shadow, and for all that a most timely and also timeless work.