Coup de chance

Ever try the slots in Las Vegas. Everyone thinks they’re getting close and that’s the scam. Woody Allen’s Coup de chance is a face-off between those who accept the odds and are still willing to play and those who believe that reality should be taken by the scuff of its neck. Only one in 14 million sperm reach the fallopian tube. So life itself is a coup de chance or “stroke of luck.” In Allen’s 50^th film, an unhappy marriage between Fanny a woman, who works for an auction house (Lou de Laage) and Jean (Melvil Poupaud) an investment banker, whose mandate is to make the wealthy wealthier, sets the scene. Add to this a chance encounter on a Paris street and a forest--one doing and the other undoing “fate.” If you’re looking for New Yorkers or the familiar types that create the identification and comfort of an Annie Hall or Deconstructing Harry, they’re nowhere to be found here. In Coup de chance the director demonstrates his mastery of story, plot and suspense. The movie's linearity can make the characters paper thin. This is George Simenon territory However, despite the notion of fate the film is predicated on, Coup de chance, ironically, has an inexorable quality. Everything is the way it's supposed to be or it would be different goes the old saw. 

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