Genre: Drama/Biography
Director: Jean-Marc Vallee
Writer: Ann Morrow
Cast: Christina Hendricks, Michael Sheen, Ben Kingsley, Jason Bateman, John Carroll Lynch, Maggie Gyllenhaal, January Jones, Jason Patric, Jean Reno, Xavier Dolan
Plot:Alys Robi (Christina Hendricks) is an up-and-coming singer from the suburbs of Montreal, Canada. It’s 1942, there’s the war in Europe and most of the bachelors are on the other side of the Ocean to fight. She leaves her crappy apartment where she’s been staying since leaving her parents’ house.
She arrives at a cabaret, where she’s part of an act with two other girls. She meets with the troop’s manager, Jean Grimaldi (John Carroll Lynch), a demanding and grumpy old man who thinks about his own wallet before anything else. He tells her that she should do a good job tonight, as big shots are supposed to be there and she doesn’t want to mess it up, but he warns her not to be too good either, as he doesn’t want to lose her, she’s earning him way too much money. She sits on the makeup chair, next to her two co-stars, Manda Parent (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and Juliette Petris (January Jones). They gossip about the big shots and say that they will not listen to Grimaldi and try to impress them. Manda has been dreaming of a career in the United States for a long time, now. Juliette disagrees, she’s perfectly happy with where she’s at, she’s earning enough money to be happy. Alys replies that she’s getting more money than them because she’s sleeping with Jean, Manda laughs with Alys, but Juliette is mad about her remark and they can’t discuss it, as it’s their time to go on the stage.
Montreal big shot music manager Rusty Davis (Michael Sheen) is in the Esquire Club tonight and he’s awaiting the start of the three women act, managed by Jean Grimaldi. They get on stage and go along with their burlesque act. He’s stunned by Alys’ talent, but he’s not really impressed by Juliette and Manda (Juliette purposely sabotaged her own performance and Manda was affected by it). The three women get off the stage and Jean tells them that they did a great job. They all change their clothes and go in the club to enjoy the other performances. Alys is approached by Rusty Davis who tells her that she did a fantastic job tonight and that she’s totally wasted with these two. He asks her how much she earns a week and he says it’s not enough. He says he could make her earn at least $1,000 a week. Grimaldi notices them talking and approaches them. Davis says they can talk outside. They go out and Davis says he would very much like to work with Alys. Grimaldi refuses, saying she’s earning him way too much money. Davis whispers something in Rusty’s ear and he says he can now have her. Alys follows Rusty to his car.
Two days later, Grimaldi meets with Manda and Juliette and shows them a check Rusty wrote him in exchange of Alys. Manda is furious he just sold their friend and Juliette is happy, because she was gaining too much attention.
Alys Robi is sitting on the floor of a poorly lit room and she’s crying. She hits the door repeatedly and screams that they should let her out.
It’s 1943 and Alys Robi now has her own radio show. Her guest today is famous Quebec comic Olivier Guimond (Jason Bateman) They talk about each other’s career and Alys ends the show with a musical performance. After the show goes off air, they go back to Olivier’s place and make love. It’s the beginning of Alys’ first true romance. The following day, Alys meets with Rusty in a recording studio. She translates a Carmen Miranda song, famous in Latin America, in French and records it. Rusty is impressed with her performance and they nail the recording in just a day. After they’re done, Rusty leaves with the tape and visits various radio stations executive and record label with the demo. During this time, Alys goes back to Olivier’s place, where they eat a romantic dinner that ends in bed.
Alys is still sitting on the floor of the same room, she’s still crying, but stopped pounding on the door. She doesn’t have the energy to do it anymore. She just gave up.
Rusty comes knocking at Olivier’s door and presents Alys her very first record deal. She’s obviously thrilled about it. As part of her record deal, she has an appearance scheduled on a famous television program alongside her boyfriend, Olivier Guimond (which will help with the ratings). She translates more songs from Carmen Miranda’s repertoire, including Bésame Mucho and Tico Tico. Alys and Olivier appear on the TV show with Rusty backstage. Her performance is a hit. Everything starts going well for Alys. Her songs are hits everywhere she goes. She translates songs from English, Spanish and Italian into French. Following a series of spectacles in Canada (both Quebec and other provinces), it’s Europe who come calling. She leaves Olivier in Quebec, while she and Dusty go in Europe for a series of shows. In 1944, she sings live on the BBC in England, in France, Switzerland and Netherlands. She’s earning more than $2,000 a week working for Rusty. She sings in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Peru. Everything’s doing great until she receives a letter from the United States.
Alys goes back to Quebec and meets with Olivier Guimond. They share a night of passion, after which she announces to him that she needs to leave, to live in the United States. Olivier doesn’t understand, but she shows a letter from Frank Sinatra’s management team. They heard about her and Sinatra himself wants to record a song with her. She says Rusty thinks she can have a career in the United States, like she always wanted. Olivier says she can do it, besides, they’re both hardly home, him with his shows and her with her musical performances all over the globe. She promises to come and see him often. She’s so dedicated that she even buys a plane to travel more easily from places to places.
It’s 1946 and Alys is now living in Hollywood. She’s all stressed out, today, she’s recording a song with the legendary Frank Sinatra (Jason Patric). They meet up at the recording studio and sing their song. Both managers agree that it is good and both are satisfied. Sinatra’s team say that they’ll give the record to Rusty, but they don’t want them to release the song until they tell them to. Alys needs to become more famous first. Sinatra invites Robi to the restaurant and she accepts. They eat together and they really seem to enjoy their time together. He drops her off at her place and leaves. Despite a great evening, Alys cries in her bed that time and not tears of joy. She forgot to visit Olivier for the last two months.
Alys sings regularly on radio shows and starts to attract interest from more and more people. Rusty comes up to her one day with a contract offer from MGM. They want her to become an icon. It would guarantee the release of the song she recorded with Sinatra. She gladly accepts. Six months have passed now and she never went back to visit Olivier.
Two days after signing a contract with MGM, Alys receives a letter from Quebec, Canada. It’s from Olivier. He says he met another woman who he feels appreciates him more. Alys is devastated. She falls on her bed.
A week later, after she missed all her appointments with MGM, Rusty breaks down the door of Alys’ home. He finds her all crawled up in her room, a mess. She refuses to clean up and doesn’t want to go and meet the people at MGM. This is when he learned Olivier ended his relation with Alys. She says she feels like it’s her fault and she truly loved him. She’s completely devastated. She eventually falls asleep talking about all of this. Against her will, Rusty drags her to his car, where he takes off. He wants to show her to MGM executives, to prove she’s still alive. Their car is suddenly hit by a car and is completely destroyed.
Two months later, Alys is still in the hospital. She’s talking to anyone anymore. She never really got over her break-up with Olivier and Rusty died in the car accident. She doesn’t have the desire to live anymore. The Los Angeles doesn’t know what to with her, so they send her to the best mental health doctor in the world, back where she’s from, in Quebec. They believe it would do wonders for her. She doesn’t speak about their plan, but in her head, she says it might be for the best.
Alys arrives at the Quebec Mental Health Institute (QMHI) and immediately meets with Dr. Wilder Penfield (Ben Kingsley). He says she might be an international superstar, but she won’t receive any special treatments here. He believes she suffers from a mental disorder and he intends to cure her, no matter what it takes. He puts her in her room, where Alys crawls on the floor and cries.
She’s eventually picked up from the floor by Dr. Penfield and he installs her in a room, on a chair. He plugs several wires on Alys and he enters another room. He electrocutes her repeatedly, until she screams, her first words since the accident. He comes out of his little room and escorts her back to her room. He says she showed significant process today.
After three weeks of electroshocks, Dr. Penfield thinks she didn’t show enough progress and decides to start using a new technique, the denailing. He extracts one of her nail while Alys screams at the top of her lungs. Little by little, Alys starts showing progress and signs of recovery, as she, and most importantly her body, wants to get out of there. Three fingernails later, one per week, Penfield feels like her progress have stopped and decides on an ultimate treatment for the former singer. He ties her to a chair with surgery tools around him. He dresses up like a surgeon. Alys start panicking as more people enter the room. Penfield practices a lobotomy on Alys, a form of psychosurgery, where he severed connections in the brain’s prefrontal lobe. The procedure has often been criticized for changing someone’s behaviour completely following the procedure. It can also be very dangerous for someone’s health. Penfield’s operation is a “success”.
Five years later, Alys Robi is released from the QMHI. She attempts a comeback a Montreal club, but is soon ridiculed by the media and the public, who see her as nothing more than a deranged, a civilized monster. She’s contacted by Manda Parent, Juliette Pétris and Jean Grimaldi who want to meet her after all these years. They meet at a restaurant and remember the good times they had together. Jean and Juliette eventually got married, riding on the money he got for “selling” her to Rusty. Manda got into acting but nothing significant happened. Jean still has contacts in the industry, even though he retired a couple of years back. He mentions David Moses, owner of a Montreal gay club who accepts anyone who wishes to sing in their club. She thanks them one last time and leaves.
Alys meets with David Moses (Xavier Dolan), who’s baffled by her life story and wishes to have her perform at her club for at least three weeks. Thrilled to finally sing again without being judged, Alys accepts. She ended up signing there until 1977.
After one of her performances, Alys is approached by a man she doesn’t recognized at first. He says he learned her life story and wants to turn it into a musical, where singers would sing her biggest hits. Alys doesn’t know it’s Luc Plamondon (Jean Reno), an up-and-coming lyricist in Quebec. She ends up telling him her entire life story in one evening in a restaurant. He says he will assemble a crew and they’re going to start working on it.
A week later, Alys meets with Luc at a local theater and the crew starts working on a musical. They show the opening number and Alys is speechless. He asks her what happened to her record with Frank Sinatra and she says she doesn’t know. She thanks Luc and Moses, who’s in the production, for making her relevant again.
Before the credits:
Olivier Guimond died in 1971, at 57. He never saw Alys again
The lobotomy was declared illegal at some points in the fifties.
Luc Plamondon rose to stardom in the eighties. He went on to write for Celine Dion.
Alys Robi died at 88, in 2011 from C. diff. in Montreal. At the time of her death, she was highly regarded as a star. She was awarded the title of Lady by Canada. No one ever found the record she did with Frank Sinatra. It is rumored she also recorded with Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Nat King Cole.
No comments:
Post a Comment