Director: Roman Coppola
Writer: Roman Coppola
Producers: Bob Bellion, Jimmy de Brabant, Gary Marcus, Michael Polaire
Starring: Jeremy Davies, Angela Lindvall, Élodie Bouchez, Gérard Depardieu, Giancarlo Giannini, Jason Schwartzman, Billy Zane, Dean Stockwell
MPAA Rating: R
Running time: 88 min.

CQ is one of those little movies that has been on my radar for a few years now, but I never really got around to checking it out – until now. It is the sole feature film from Roman Coppola, son of Francis Ford, brother of Sophia and co-writer of Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited. With just this one film to go by, it’s kind of hard to judge whether he can successfully pave a path for himself as a unique director in the same manner as his more famous family members, but CQ at least proves him to be a perfectly capable and talented filmmaker.

Starting off in 1969, it stars Jeremy Davies (a great character actor probably best known for his stint on Lost as Daniel Faraday) as Paul, a young man who lives in a small apartment in Paris with his girlfriend Marlene (Élodie Bouchez). He is the editor of a schlocky science fiction film called Codename: Dragonfly, a job which enables him to swipe film stock for his own personal movie, in which he shoots details of his life and makes miniature confessions to the camera in his bathroom. He gets caught up in the drama of the studio film after its director (Gérard Depardieu) is fired and swapped for an ego-driven auteur (Jason Schwartzman), who in turn eventually breaks his leg in a car accident, leading to Paul getting assigned to salvage the incomplete project. As he tries to keep the producer (Giancarlo Giannini) happy, he grapples with his rapidly deteriorating relationship with Marlene, attraction towards the film’s star Valentine (model Angela Lindvall) and confused efforts to complete both of his movies.

For most of CQ, Coppola offers up a fun tribute to moviemaking in general and the European arthouse scene of the 1960s in particular. The big sci-fi movie is clearly an homage to Danger: Diabolik and Barbarella with its scantily-clad secret agent heroine, laser guns, plastic model spaceships and love scenes. There are noticeable nods to such classics as 8 ½, Contempt and 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, plus some well-chosen casting in the form of established stars Giannini and Depardieu, with the former as an enthusiastic, Carlo Ponti-esque character while the latter constantly raves about making “revolutionary” cinema, as if he refused to move on from May of 1968. With the help of the band Mellow, Coppola does a good job of creating a very Mod-ish Paris of fashion divas, wannabe artistes, all-night parties and film studios.

However, the film isn’t perfect. One of its biggest faults is the relationship between Paul and Marlene, which is drawn a little too simplistically. Essentially, there are too many scenes with the two of them in which Paul is so painfully passive that it is as if he isn’t even trying to save his connection with her. Marlene constantly attempts to get him to focus on her instead of his film(s), but with so few results that it’s actually quite frustrating to watch. Coppola easily could have done a bit more to add some complexity or conflict to Paul in those scenes instead of making him so withdrawn and unresponsive. For his part, though, Jeremy Davies does some good work onscreen and makes for an interesting protagonist to watch as he tries to make some sense of his place in the world of filmmaking. However, I was expecting him to undergo more of a crisis in terms of his creativity and personality – preferably something similar to what Marcello Mastroianni’s Guido goes through in Fellini’s more richly orchestrated 8 ½. In fact, that is another of CQ’s shortcomings – it often feels too reserved. In the screen time they get, Giannini, Depardieu and Schwartzman are entertaining to watch, but they could have appeared more often and done a bit more with their characters than what actually turns up in the film. Also, more could have happened to Paul while on his road to enlightenment and/or artistic fulfillment, especially given all the odd characters and situations he encounters along the way (oh, what a marvelous Coen Brothers film this would have made).

But while there’s some sense of unfulfilled potential about CQ, the film is still pretty enjoyable. One of my favorite scenes brings in Dean Stockwell as Paul’s father and allows the two of them to share a quiet, nicely acted moment together in an airport lounge, making for a refreshing breather from the movie-centric storyline. The Codename: Dragonfly sequences are great fun to watch, and there are some moments that affectionately dwell on the craft of filmmaking from an older era (such as when Paul is shown pulling and cutting strips of film through his editing machine and a bit of suspense involving the potential exposure of a can of raw film stock). Though not quite on the same level as 8 ½, Day for Night or Boogie Nights, CQ is still a fairly satisfying contribution to the movies-about-movies subgenre that is at least worth a look.