Review: ‘Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life’

The generic musical biopic storyline goes like this: The main character is a nobody, then he becomes famous, then he hits rock bottom, then he gets redeemed and/or dies tragically. In between, you get to hear your favorite songs while watching the main character hobnob with other famous people. It's conventional and predictable, but if there's still some little part of you that fantasizes about what that world might be like, it's also pretty seductive.

To its credit, "Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life" tries to do more than just that in its survey of the life of revered and controversial French singer Serge Gainsbourg. It's not a complete success, but its willingness to color outside the lines makes it worthwhile.

The film follows Gainsbourg from his time as a boy (played by Kacey Mottet-Klein) back when he was known as Lucien living in France in the early 1940s. It's here that writer-director Joann Sfar sets up Gainsbourg's central crisis, which like in a lot of musical biopics is between the artist and himself. The twist on this, however, is that Sfar (a comic book artist and creator making his feature debut) personifies this struggle in the form of a character called The Mug (Doug Jones), who menaces Gainsbourg and is decked out with an oversized puppet head and long, slender fingers. With his massive, pointy nose and generally exaggerated features, The Mug is Gainsbourg's vision of himself as an unattractive Jew, a hurtful self-image that the film suggests haunted the artist throughout his career, even when he was bedding beauties like Brigitte Bardot.

At just over two hours, the first half of "Gainsbourg" is easily the more interesting section, showing young Lucien as he evolves into the adult Serge (played by Eric Elmosnino) who begins to find success as a singer and songwriter. Too often, filmmakers quickly want to jump to the period in a musician's career that audiences know, but Sfar's patience allows us to fully understand how Gainsbourg became a tormented, soulful artist. (And it's worth pointing out that Sfar has freely admitted that his movie isn't meant to be a literal biography of Gainsbourg but more of an impression of the singer.)

But while that backstory helps humanize Gainsbourg, the movie does eventually fall into greatest-hits mode once his career starts to take off, bouncing around from highlight to highlight in a way that feels less emotional and more obligatory. Gainsbourg's alcoholism seems to pop up out of nowhere, and while the movie takes great care to dramatize his two most important love affairs -- with Bardot and Jane Birkin -- Gainsbourg's behavior is so distant that it's hard to gauge just from the film why these women mattered so much to him.

But much like "The Doors," "Gainsbourg" is always intensely watchable because of its lead actor's performance. Beyond just looking like Gainsbourg, Elmosnino also seems to embody the singer's casual, carnal appeal. Suave by not trying, melancholy almost by default, this big-screen Gainsbourg is nothing like the magnetic, hedonistic Jim Morrison, but they share an undeniable star charisma, and Elmosnino makes you fall in love with the guy. As a whole, "Gainsbourg" doesn't quite achieve what "La Vie en Rose" did for Edith Piaf -- turning a life inside out to get to its core truth -- but there's a lot of spirit in it nonetheless.

Grade: B-