Michel Gondry will probably always be remembered as the guy who delivered one of the best films of last decade, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but he's failed to match or even come close to that success ever since. The Science of Sleep is solid, and Be Kind Rewind is charming but forgettable, but stuff like The Green Hornet and The We & the I are downright terrible. That doesn't mean Gondry has suddenly lost his touch, and if the trailer for Mood Indigo is any indication, he may be back in top form.
Visually stunning and brimming with a sense of pure joy, Gondry's imaginative imagery powers the trailer to such a degree that you don't need to understand a word of French to get the message. Based on Boris Vian's 1947 book, the film stars Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou, Omar Sy, and Gad Elmalah in the story of a wealthy inventor who meets then marries the woman of his dreams. She unfortuantely falls ill due to a water lily in her lungs, and he proceeds to drain his finances keeping her alive surrounding her with fresh flowers.
From the jazzy opening score, the mood gets a bit more soulful when The Lumineers' 'Ho Hey' kicks in, but we don't really see the dark turn that the story must eventually take. Then again, they kept that stuff out of the 'Eternal Sunshine' trailers, and we saw how that turned out. Mood Indigo opens on April 24th in France. Hopefully a stateside release will be announced soon.
