French Exit

Frances Price would be pleased that she’s the center of attention in French Exit. But for moviegoers, such a proposition yields mixed results.

Michelle Pfeiffer’s electric performance as the scene-stealing protagonist propels this otherwise uneven portrait of a widowed socialite’s fall from grace, which is overstuffed with eccentricities while a deeper emotional connection remains elusive.

As the film opens, Frances sees her latest Manhattan spending spree interrupted to a call from the bank, telling her she’s insolvent. “My plan was to die before the money ran out,” she explains about her nest egg.

So she liquidates her belongings and heads to France with her adult son, Malcolm (Lucas Hedges), who has just broken up with his girlfriend (Imogen Poots). Determined to continue spending any remaining cash until she’s truly broke, Frances is generous with tips and donating to the homeless, maybe as a bonus for those willing to tolerate her smug recklessness.

While housesitting for a friend in Paris, Frances soothes her depression by amassing a quirky surrogate family including a busybody neighbor (Valerie Mahaffey) and a clairvoyant (Danielle Macdonald) trying to communicate with Frances’ late husband, whose spirit might be trapped inside a cat.

She revels in her reputation as an unstable diva. There are hints of mental illness and nods to lingering trauma from her past that perhaps cause her erratic behavior. Deep down, it appears she’s seeking catharsis and closure, and of course, craving attention every step of the way.

Does she deserve our pity or a harsh comeuppance? Either way, Pfeiffer finds a sympathetic vulnerability in her abrasive character, in the process reminding us what a commanding screen presence she has.

French Exit tends to flatten out whenever Frances isn’t on screen, since the periphery characters — including the toothless Malcolm — feel like little more than thinly sketched sidekicks in an enabling chorus. One exclusion is a brief appearance by a ship’s doctor who swigs from a flask while giving unsolicited morgue tours.

In the hands of director Azazel Jacobs (The Lovers) and screenwriter Patrick DeWitt, who adapted his own novel, whenever the narrative momentum stalls, French Exit just amps up the weirdness.

That creates a frustrating detachment that leaves the audience in emotional limbo. As it injects absurdist whimsy at random intervals, like Frances, the meandering film winds up more exhausting than endearing.

Rated R, 113 minutes.