Give Me Your Hand
Reel Affirmations 2009
Donne-Moi La Main
Review by Randy Shulman
Rating: 
(1 out of 5)
Thursday, 10/22/2009, 6:30 PM
Feature presentation, $10 at Shakespeare Theatre’s Harman Center for the Arts
French with English subtitles
TWIN BROTHERS TAKE to the road, traveling from their hometown in France to Spain for their mother’s funeral. Their trip together — picturesque and virtually wordless — is consistently disrupted by carnal distractions of both male and female form, driving a wedge between the brothers that may forever damage their inseparable bonds.
Believe me, it sounds better on paper than it plays on screen.
They say silence is golden. But in director Pascal-Alex Vincent’s drama, the silences are insufferable. You pray for a subtitle to pop up, something — anything — to read. Sadly, when a shred of dialogue does arrive, it’s as banal as can be. Maybe it’s lost in the translation.
Oh, sure, the movie is beautiful, with heightened colors, made richer through the use of digital enhancement. And the twins (Alexandre and Victor Carril) are sumptuous examples of French maleness, even if they do look a little bit like Daniel Day-Lewis knockoffs. And yeah, there’s some minor nudity, most if it in the form of breasts. But honestly, there are so many other things you could be doing with 99 minutes of your life — laundry, shopping, waxing your back — that the very idea of sitting through Give Me Your Hand should give you enormous pause.
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