Reviews for THE BIG PICTURE

http://www.villagevoice.com/2012-10-10/film/the-big-picture-film-review/

"You're as free as the wind," says Paul Exben (Romain Duris) to the son of a legal client to whom he has offered the choice of drug rehab or disinheritance from the family's fortune. Oh, irony. Paul is himself encumbered with a career he hates and a family he suspects he's beginning to lose. Based on Douglas Kennedy's novel and adapted for French audiences with the addition of Western European ennui and tiny cars, director Eric Lartigau's The Big Picture examines a pretty common fantasy of unhappy people—pulling a Dick Whitman/Don Draper switcheroo and fleeing to a new life—and creates a harrowing scenario that drives Paul to attempt it....

‘Picture’ perfect vision

• By FARRAN SMITH NEHME
• THE BIG PICTURE

In the first moments of Eric Lartigau’s thriller, Paul Exben (Romain Duris) answers the call of the baby monitor and rises to comfort his crying son, while his wife (Marina Foïs) stays asleep. Thus is it guaranteed that this handsome yuppie, who’s about to have a spectacular midlife crisis, will have the sympathy of almost every woman in the audience.

Paul’s job as an attorney is so cushy it includes Catherine Deneuve as a boss, but he’s deeply unhappy. His wife is having an affair with Greg (Eric Ruf), a photographer Paul openly envies. A violent confrontation between the two leaves Greg dead. Paul hides out by adopting Greg’s identity, right down to his camera and passport. He gets a new life, at the cost of separation from his two sons and constant fear of discovery.