Un Pont entre Deux Rives

Gérard Depardieu's first stab at directing (bolstered by Frédéric Auburtin) is a flimsy 'ménage à trois' tale. The first bars of the theme music rip off Gainsbourg's 'L'Eau à la bouche', and the film follows on with other allusions to works of far greater worth ('Jules et Jim', 'Madame Bovary') that only underline its lack of substance. Carole Bouquet puts in a glaringly monolithic turn as the wife who leaves her foreman husband for the site engineer, while Depardieu's noble prole and Charles Berling's raffish seducer are about as engaging as waxworks. (In French.)