Woody Allen’s Latest ‘Coup’

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Protestors gathered when Woody Allen’s latest film premiered at the Venice Film Festival, but after it screened, the audience rose in a nearly three-minute standing ovation. Both reactions are to be expected, given the gravity of the accusations against Allen and the quality of the new film.

Coup de Chance is easily Allen’s best in several years. Across his long career, the incredibly prolific writer-director’s peaks of creative imagination have been followed by plateaus of mediocrity. His most recent pictures, A Rainy Day in New York (2019) and Rifkin’s Festival (2020), were unremarkable. But as with Match Point (2005) and Scoop (2006), Allen leaped from his rut by shifting his focus abroad. Coup de Chance is set and filmed in Paris, a city that inspired one of his late career triumphs, Midnight in Paris (2011). This time, it’s actually a French film, shot entirely in that language (with English subtitles) spoken by a French and Québécois cast. Even Allen’s customary white on black credits are in French (“Avec la participation …”).

Ostensibly a drama of infidelity that leads to murder, Coup de Chance is really a metaphysical tale about irony and chance. It opens with a seemingly random encounter on Avenue Montaigne between Alain (Niels Schneider), an aspiring novelist, and Fanny (Lou de Laâge), manager at an upmarket auction house. He spots her immediately and she responds with surprised, gradual recognition. Turns out he was in love with her when they were in lycée (high school) and she hadn’t given him much thought in the years since (albeit she recalls liking his articles in the school newspaper).

Alain is divorced while Fanny married well by society’s measure to a financier. She lives with Jean (Melvil Poupaud) in understated splendor and travels with a smart, affluent set. Fanny recognizes that Jean’s doting affection barely conceals his delight in displaying her as the shiniest trophy among his friends’ wives. She finds those friends shallow and materialistic, but they are no fools, whispering amongst themselves about the disappearance of Jean’s business partner several years before. Mystery shrouds his ability to make the rich richer. By contrast to her glamorous marriage, Alain is a reminder of her bohemian aspirations. He can give her nothing but unalloyed passion and moment by moment, her vague interest in a forgotten classmate turns into love.

Coup de Chance is a series of conversations in beautiful settings. The affair is Alain’s dream come true-turned-nightmare. The compulsive Jean is possessive and powerful, alert to Fanny’s subtle behavioral shifts. He hires a private investigator. And then he hires killers. And then he arouses the suspicion of Fanny’s mother …

Alain explains to Fanny that his novel is about “how ironic life can be,” and Allen’s screenplay is suffused with ironies, aware of the effect of apparently random events and multiple paths taken and not taken. What if Alain had overcome his shyness and pursued Fanny in school? Or arrived on Avenue Montaigne two minutes too late to reencounter her? Ironically, Jean dismisses chance and disdains luck. “We make our own luck,” he says with the insistence of a self-made man who climbed the ladder with ruthless determination.

Coup de Chance builds suspense as lies lead to more lies and one murder leads to the careful planning of another. The mechanism of chance is given a mischievous sparkle through the score, mostly upbeat jazz by Herbie Hancock and his cohort.

Coup de Chance opens in theaters on April 5.