Reviews: French drama ‘Lady J,’ alt-doc ‘Woodsrider’ and western redux ‘The Glorious Seven’

‘Lady J’

Anyone who loves “Dangerous Liaisons” — in any of its iterations — should rush to cue up “Lady J,” a period romance with a similarly wicked sense of comic melodrama. Adapting an anecdote from Denis Diderot’s bawdy, playful novel “Jacques the Fatalist,” French writer-director Emmanuel Mouret indulges in the decadent pleasure of watching elegantly dressed men and women on opulent estates behaving awfully.

Cécile de France stars as Madame de la Pommeraye, an aristocratic widow who gets seduced by the Marquis des Arcis (Edouard Baer), a notorious love-’em-and-leave-’em libertine. Though she prides herself on her own sexual independence — “Happiness that doesn’t last is called pleasure,” she chuckles — the madame still gets mad when the marquis starts cheating on her.

The French title of “Lady J” is “Mademoiselle de Joncquières,” which is the name of a destitute young woman (Alice Isaaz), who along with her proud, formerly wealthy mother (Natalia Dontcheva) gets reluctantly roped into the heroine’s scheme to punish the marquis.

Mouret keeps the overall tone too frothy, which saps some of the emotional sting. “Lady J” is still a lot of fun, though, thanks to its snappy repartee and stunning locations — often framed so the characters look like figurines in lavish dollhouses.

The film also makes a barbed point about the games some rich people play, satisfying their own desires with little regard for the collateral damage. This is a story about the different kinds of power — financial, sexual, social — and how easy they can be to abuse.

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‘Lady J’

In French with English subtitles

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes

Playing: Starts March 8 on Netflix

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‘Woodsrider’

Not every documentary has to cover some big event, look back at a significant person’s life or dig deep into social issues. Some very good docs can be more like director Cambria Matlow’s “Woodsrider,” just quietly observing people going about their days, regardless of whether or not anything is “happening,” per se.

“Woodsrider” follows Sadie Ford, a 19-year-old Oregon snowboarder, so devoted to the spiritual dimension of her sport that she spends the season camping on Mount Hood with her dog, communing with snow in all its forms. During the weeks Matlow and cinematographer Jerred North filmed Ford, the weather was unseasonably warm and rainy, so the boarder’s focus shifted to grabbing downhill time when feasible, and avoiding slipping into melancholy.

Ford never explains any of these feelings out loud to the cameras. Matlow eschews interviews and on-screen text (aside from an opening quote), and instead lets Sadie just be, as North’s lovely shots of the chilly outdoors set the mood. Whether Ford’s eating quietly around a campfire or partying at friends’ condos, this film plays up the contrasts and contradictions of her life: between typical teen ski resort behavior and her more personal, internal quest.

“Woodsrider” is often needlessly opaque about what it’s showing and why. But the sense of calm about the film is oddly relaxing, even when Sadie’s anxious about the melting snow. This is a contemplative portrait of a different way to live.

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‘Woodsrider’

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 23 minutes

Playing: Available March 12 on VOD

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‘The Glorious Seven’

The “hire rogues to defend against rogues” plot of Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 masterpiece “Seven Samurai” has been borrowed by movies both great (such as 1960’s “The Magnificent Seven”) and not-so-great (the 2016 remake of “The Magnificent Seven”). Writer-director Harald Franklin’s “The Glorious Seven” falls on the undesirable side of that line. Despite an opening credits sequence that directly compares the stars of the new movie to the likes of Yul Brenner and Toshiro Mifune, this run-of-the-mill shoot-em-up isn’t exactly an instant classic.

The basic premise still works fairly well. When a shady land baron sees his long-suffering wife get kidnapped by guerrillas, he hires a skilled commando (played by Jerry Kwarteng) to assemble a team of scalawags to get her back. Franklin puts his own twist on the material with this mixed-gender crew, and adds more moral ambiguity to both the mission and its master.

But while the European locations are picturesque, the cast lacks the chops and charisma to make this collection of killers and thieves imposing. Weight-room-sculpted muscles aside, everyone here comes across like too much of a lightweight — as if they’re just playing pretend. But maybe that’s the best anyone could expect from a movie that’s a copy of a copy of a copy.

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‘The Glorious Seven’

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 33 minutes

Playing: Available March 12 on VOD

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