Review: ‘Lolo’ is a crass, lowbrow comedy

Julie Delpy’s romantic comedy “Lolo” opens with promise: a colorful animated credit sequence backed by the peppy 1960s pop hit “Music to Watch Girls By.” It’s downhill from there.

Delpy, who directed and co-wrote (with Eugénie Grandval), plays Violette, a neurotic divorcée and Paris fashion-event producer who reluctantly begins dating sweet if slightly hapless computer programmer Jean-René (Dany Boon). However, the nascent couple are soon unknowingly sabotaged by Violette’s spoiled, jealous 19-year-old son, Lolo (Vincent Lacoste), who’s amassed more than a decade’s worth of tricks to scare off his mom’s suitors.

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As heinous as Lolo may be, Violette is deceptively more odious: immature, insensitive, obtuse and, in truth, unworthy of the decent Jean-René. (Delpy has co-concocted a truly dismal part for herself.) Given how Violette has so consciously coddled and enabled Lolo in the years since her husband split — and has been subsequently dumped by so many other men — it’s senseless that she’d instantly blame Jean-René for all the Lolo-inspired craziness.

This strained, often crass comedy traffics in broadness and inconsistency far more than anything smart, clever or dimensional. That might be more forgivable if the film was at least funny. It’s not.

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‘Lolo’

In French with English subtitles

No rating

Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes

Playing: In limited release