Grand Central (2013)

Written by CinemaSerf on April 14, 2024

I'm usually a fan of a bit of Tahar Rahim but there's not really so much going on in this romantic drama. It's setting is novel - it's not often that you find a nuclear power station as the location for a love story. That's where he ends up working, doing some of the constant de-contamination work at the site. Dressed, top-to-toe, in white protective gear when he is not showering or scrubbing his body, he befriends his boss "Toni" (Denis Ménochet) and meets his girlfriend "Karole" (Léa Seydoux). Things all now take a rather predicable turn as they embark on an affair hoping that neither "Toni" nor anyone else will notice. Aside from giving us a glimpse inside their workplace and showing us that it's quite a risky place to work - especially when you get down into the reactor area, the rest is a listlessly directed look at two pretty unlikeable principal characters surrounded by some petty cheats, thieves and liars. Perhaps the power plant was meant to a metaphor for the nature of their relationship? There is a train at the start, hence the title I guess, but there's not really very much grand about this dry, dark and dreary film.