Predictable plot in Paris set comedy-drama

Kevin Kline, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith. Who could ask for more, right? Indeed the opening scene of My Old Lady (much acclaimed and prolific playwright Israel Horovitz’s second film directorial effort based on his play of same name) – opening Friday at the Main Art, AMC Livonia, and Michigan Theater - has lots of promise. An American, Mathias Gold (Kline) has arrived in Paris and is trying to find a certain apartment. We soon learn he has inherited a rather luxurious flat, a balm to a failed writer with a pile of debts. He finds he could sell it for 12 million euros, a tidy sum. But it’s not to be. He’s quickly informed by the apartment’s unexpected resident, Mathilde Girard (Smith), that he is in fact the interloper. It has something to do with an arcane French housing law. She’s the real resident despite his legal ownership, and he can’t claim the abode until she kicks the bucket. Yes, it’s as bizarre to you and me as it is to him. Problem is, even though Mathilde is 92 she’s in “top health,” according to her physician, so prospects of shelling out monthly rent to the dear woman almost ad infinitum isn’t an attractive prospect for Mathias. Worse, Mathilde, a shrewd no-nonsense Englishwoman who has lived most of her life in Gai Paris, in fact demands rent from him if he’s going to stay even temporarily. This is a peel back the onion layers flick, folks. Nothing seems as it originally appears. The only honest character is our New Yorker. Mathilde’s erudition and manners belie some sordidness. Adding to the picture is Mathilde’s live-in daughter Chloé (KST), who immediately dislikes Mathias, providing a mother daughter two punch. The unfairness of it all of course nags Mathias and, consulting a realtor, he seeks ways to acquire the apartment, even if he has to split it up. Mother and daughter resist. But Mathias discovers a secret which he can use against the twosome. Along the way he discovers other things about the Girard family and who exactly they are, which triggers the onion peeling and revelations. And while the plot nominally kept my attention it really is pretty predictable. The movie is billed as a drama and comedy and it’s about two-thirds the latter. But we do smile if not chuckle at some of the lines and antics, from Mathias’s very American clumsiness among the French to classic jokes about the French population’s health. “It’s the red wine, isn’t it?” he says of Mathilde’s longevity. While Mathilde, spotting a loser, morbidly suggests he would fail at committing suicide by jumping into the Seine “and just end up with a dreadful cold.” But the film descends into considerable darkness until we’re relieved, thankfully, at the end. If you like typically romantic scenes of Paris this film’s for you, with a score by Mark Orton that sounds traditionally Parisian yet menacingly modern. If you like Kline, Smith and Scott Thomas, you might not want to take a pass. But all have performed better largely because they’ve had better scripts in better stories.