The Sec­ond Act – first-look review

There’s much more smug sanc­ti­mo­ny than there is inno­va­tion or gen­uine­ly nov­el humour in Quentin Dupieux’ dashed-off doo­dle, The Sec­ond Act, which is a film that wants to have its metafic­tion­al cake and eat it (inso­much as a film can do such things). French act­ing roy­al­ty – Léa Sey­doux, Vin­cent Lin­don, Louis Gar­rel and less­er-known Raphaël Que­nard – round up, pre­sum­ably for a bit of a week­end lark, but also to indulge in some lac­er­at­ing self-crit­i­cism and essay the apoc­a­lyp­tic, artis­ti­cal­ly-bank­rupt future of the glob­al film­mak­ing industry.

Which would be all well and good if Dupieux weren’t so quick to lean on tired tabloid talk­ing points, wacky pop cul­ture ref­er­ences and ​“can­cel cul­ture” as easy-option punch­lines, mak­ing the film come across like a par­tic­u­lar­ly egre­gious (albeit self-aware) Net­flix com­e­dy spe­cial. There’s a deeply uncom­fort­able and unfun­ny trans­pho­bic tirade with­in the open­ing ten min­utes which is placed in quotes marks in an attempt to dif­fuse its appar­ent vicious­ness, but you’re left with the sense that Dupieux wants to give some­thing to both the haters and the lib­er­als who would be offend­ed by such a script choice. It’s a hack­neyed jab at a brigade of polit­i­cal­ly cor­rect types who don’t actu­al­ly exist, and so falls com­plete­ly flat.

The film is then built around four, pil­lar-like track­ing shots in which two mem­bers of the cast engage in what feels like an impro­vised con­ver­sa­tion. Each plays an actor who is play­ing a part in a strange, bifur­cat­ed nar­ra­tive – lat­er on we learn why the film looks and feels like it does when its writer/​director/​producer is final­ly revealed. The joke is that they hate the expe­ri­ence of mak­ing this ​“film”, and they con­stant­ly smash down the fourth wall to offer their real feel­ings on what they believe to be a den­i­grat­ing and cheap profession.

If there’s any­thing to be sal­vaged from the film it’s the actors, who are all on side with the direc­tor and savvy with his tricksy MO. Lin­don, usu­al­ly so seri­ous and intense, allows his freak flag to fly, and Louis Gar­rel fires off some very fun­ny lit­tle ges­tures between line-read­ings. Que­nard is strong, but is sad­dled with most of the con­tentious mate­r­i­al, while Sey­doux has to push back against the rit­u­al humil­i­a­tions that come with her role.

Maybe from read­ing this you’re get­ting a sense of what this film is and what it’s doing, but to intri­cate­ly describe all of its self-aware nest­ing lay­ers would be tire­some in the extreme. Godard did this in Le Mepris over 60 years ago, and there have been many vari­a­tions on the mate­r­i­al since (many made by Dupieux!), and this one fronts like its barbs are box fresh, and they very much ain’t. But design­er cyn­i­cism can only get you so far, and even at a curt 75 min­utes, this one feels like an hour too long.