Eden (2014) – Film Review

Eden is the most recent film to come from French director Mia Hansen-Løve, first premiering at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. It was also featured across Australia as a part of the 2015 Alliance Française French Film Festival.

Eden follows the life of Paul Vallée (Félix de Givry), who was loosely based off Hansen-Løve’s own brother, Sven. Paul himself is a ficticious French DJ who helped pioneer the French Touch, a genre of electronic music popular in the 1990s. Focusing on his love-life, struggles with money and cocaine addiction with Daft Punk thrown in every now and then (in an attempt to keep it relevant), the film follows the ups and downs of Paul’s life trying to follow his dream of being a DJ. From his rave life as a teenager in the early 90s, to his cocaine-addicted washed-up DJ life in the late 2000s.

Eden feels like an attempt to be the next La Vie En Rose or The Theory of Everything, but instead is hard to sit through. The film uses odd camera work, often handheld, which leads to shakiness that can be hard to watch at times.

Transitions through time are also choppy, and extremely hard to follow. For example, one scene is in New York City, the next in Paris. This time transition also makes it difficult to introduce characters. We are instead finding out names of sometimes key characters just through conversation.  Also, the appearances of Daft Punk feel forced, and are random and sometimes just misplaced at best. On the plus side, the film has a great soundtrack and the acting is great, but those elements alone are not enough to save it.

2/5