Movie review: Confession of a Child of the Century

(15)

It’s the fate of almost any rock or pop star that derision will be heaped on them if they have the temerity to act in a movie.

Pete Doherty is well cast in Verhyde’s Alfred de Musset adaptation. He plays a 19th-century flâneur and decadent, struggling to come to terms with the metaphysical meaninglessness of existence. The problem is that his sense of ennui is catching. The film’s pacing is as sluggish as he is. It doesn’t help either that there is no romantic spark between Doherty’s character and the beautiful widow (Charlotte Gainsbourg) he is wooing in his own eccentric way.