The eccentric whimsy and invention overfill the screen of Michel Gondry’s
“Mood Indigo,” an adaptation of a novel by the Frenchman who wrote “I Spit on
Your Graves.” Set in an alternate “Brazil”/”Delicatessen”/”Eternal Sunshine of
the Spotless Mind” reality, it’s a blur of queer gadgets and odd doo-dads,
see-through limousines and dinner tables on roller skates, all in a tale
concocted by an office full of women clattering at a conveyor belt of
typewriters.
That it doesn’t add up to much more than eye candy can be attributed to the
batting average of its director, Gondry — whose latest film has more in common
with his inscrutable failures “Human Nature” and “The Science of Sleep” than
with “Be Kind, Rewind,” or his great, romantic triumph, “Eternal Sunshine.”

Romain Duris (“Chinese Puzzle,” “Heartbreaker”) is Colin, a quirky inventor
whose latest gizmo is his finest achievement. The Pianocktail concocts novelty
cocktails to suit whatever piece you play on the instrument. Colin has an ear
for Duke Ellington’s tunes, “Mood Indigo” in particular.

Nicolas (Omar Sy of “Intouchables”) is his daffy live-in chef, whose culinary
creations literally dance (stop-motion animation) across the plate. He gets his
ideas from a TV chef, because if he’s missing an ingredient or spice, the chef
on TV reaches through the ancient cathode ray tube and hands it to him.
Colin’s best friend is Chick (Gad Elmaleh of “Midnight in Paris”). He’s
obsessed with his favorite philosopher, Jean Sol Partre. Cute.
But Chick has fallen for Alise (Aissa Maiga), Nicolas’s sister, and
Nicolas has found love with Issa (Charlotte Le Bon). Colin is beside
himself.
“I demand to fall in love, too!” he shouts, in French with English
subtitles.
And so he does, with none other than Chloe — the sparkly Audrey Tautou of
“Amelie” fame.
Their courtship isn’t particularly charming or warm, which matters all the
more when Chloe, inhaling an enchanted snowflake as she sleeps, develops an
illness in which plants grow out of her lungs. Colin could possibly come up with
some invention to save her. But the only thing that keeps her alive is covering
her in flowers, which exhausts Colin’s finances, forcing him to take a
succession of terrible jobs, including human plant cover. People are paid to
strip and lie down on piles of dirt so that brass acorns can germinate into
proton guns.
The polymath Boris Vian’s novel “L’ecume des jours” (“Froth on the Daydream”
is as good a translation as any) has been turned into an opera, an earlier
French film and the Japanese movie “Chloe.” Perhaps those adaptations are more
coherent, more emotionally accessible, than “Mood Indigo.”
Gondry is famed for tackling the dense and dark side of “twee,” with American
Wes Anderson having a firm chokehold on the lighter side of it. Everyday items
are magically reinvented for the film, but the characters — despite breaking
into balletic “jetes” on occasion — are rarely more than bystanders, witnesses
to the weirdness.
It’s well-cast, but Tautou and Duris don’t set off the sparks and create the
longing that would give this tragic romance some heft. Everybody else takes a
back seat to the inspired visuals.
So as charming as a picnic can be, where one side of the table is drenched by
a rainstorm and the other sits in sunshine, you can’t help but feel the director
can’t see the forest for the twees.

MPAA Rating: unrated, with some violence, sexual situations
Cast: Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou, Gad Elmaleh, Omar Sy,Aissa Maiga,
Charlotte Le Bon
Credits: Directed by Michel Gondry, screenplay by Luc Bossi and Michel
Gondry, based on the nove by Boris Vian. A Drafthouse Films release. <
Running time: 1:34