Paul and Michelle

Paul and Michelle is a 1974 drama film directed and produced by Lewis Gilbert, whose story Vernon Harris and Angela Huth dramatized. It is a sequel to the 1971 film Friends, by the same director and with the same lead actors.[1]

Paul and Michelle
Theatrical release poster
Directed byLewis Gilbert
Produced byLewis Gilbert
Written byVernon Harris
Angela Huth
Story:
Lewis Gilbert
StarringAnicée Alvina
Sean Bury
Keir Dullea
Music byMichel Colombier
CinematographyClaude Renoir
Edited byThelma Connell
Distributed byParamount Pictures (USA)
Release date
  • May 1974 (1974-05) (US)
Running time
105 mins.
CountryFrance/United Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Plot

Taking place approximately three years after the events in Friends, Paul and Michelle follows the family of Paul Harrison (Sean Bury) and Michelle Latour (Anicée Alvina) after they have been reunited. At the beginning of the film Paul finishes prep school and he informs his father (whom he still has not forgiven for separating him from Michelle and their child) that he plans to look for Michelle and now because he is a legal adult he can no longer stop him. Paul has to cope with the difficulties he faces balancing work, college, and trying to maintain their family as well as a new love interest for Michelle.

Cast

Reception

Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "Paul and Michelle are not real human beings; their responses are contrived. Both treat the world as a large doll house, while the script treats them as caricatures of what teen-agers might think young adults were like 20 years ago."[2] Variety wrote that "instead of combining elements into some semblance of acceptable soap, Gilbert merely piles one ingredient on top of the other without sorting each out for proper emotional emphasis. By trafficking in stereotypes, producer-director makes neither the lovers nor their various predicaments absorbing, believable or even interesting."[3] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote that Lewis Gilbert "should have left well alone" after Friends, because the sequel "is hopelessly contrived and tedious."[4] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called it "an eminently uncalled-for sequel" that ends "with another separation and the threat of another sequel three years hence, when Paul will have finished college and be ready to assume the full burdens of a family man. If the moviegoing public has any regard for its own welfare, it will take this threat seriously and help prevent Lewis Gilbert from making a fool of himself three times in a row."[5]

References
  1. "Paul and Michelle". The New York Times.
  2. Siskel, Gene (22 May 1974). "Paul and Michelle". Chicago Tribune. Section 2, p. 7.
  3. "Film Reviews: Paul and Michelle". Variety. 24 April 1974. 18.
  4. Thomas, Kevin (7 August 1974). "'Friends' Together Again". Los Angeles Times. Part IV, p. 16.
  5. Arnold, Gary (11 May 1974). "Paul and Michelle". The Washington Post. C5.
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