'Renoir' the film is sometimes boring but sometimes beautiful.

'Renoir' with Michel Bouquet, Christa Theret, and Vincent Rottiers. Directed by Gilles Bourdos, 107 minutes long. In French with English subtitles.


     "Among the French Impressionists," writes the British art critic John Berger, "Renoir is still the most popular painter."
     In the film 'Renoir' director Gilles Bourdos shows us why. In 1916 France is besieged by World War One as German and Allied troops kill each other in merciless trench warfare. But here's Auguste Renoir, living peacefully in the south of France, waited on by five women. Now Renoir's life is going downhill. He's widowed, wheelchair-bound, old and arthritic. Still, he paints beautiful pictures of naked, slightly overweight young women frolicking in green pastures.
    Enter Amadeee, a young female  model played by Christa Theret, and then Jean Renoir, Renoir's son, played by Vincent Rottiers. The young Renoir has been wounded in the war and hobbles around on crutches. Fireworks should ensue but they rarely do in this movie.
    The Renoir family is your average dysfunctional family, full of rivalries, fueds and frustrated loves. But director Gilles Bourdos doesn't probe too deeply here. His camera and script stay mostly on the surface of things as Renoir paints and talks.
    Renoir tells his son Jean who in real life later becomes a famous film director, that painting is about painting naked ladies and not "poverty, despair and death."
   Fair enough and the film sticks mostly to that rule. It can bore you at times. but lovely shots of the south of France and Renoir's estate can enchant you also. 'Renoir' is not a great film but it has its charms.