When his minor art-house hit Red Lights helped Cedric Kahn finally emerge from the festival ghetto, his next move was to make a family movie...about a man who turns into a plane. Following that puzzling left turn, Regrets—an adultery melodrama that constantly teases you with fatal consequences—seems closer to familiar territory. But it's inexplicably turgid and predictable, the kind of movie in which the only reason someone walking to their parked car is so that they can spot an ex-lover on the street; adultery comes right on schedule.

That's what happens when Mathieu (Yvan Attal) returns home to attend to his dying mother. His ex, Maya (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), on whom he walked out years ago, is now married to terrifying, drunken lout Franck (Philippe Katerine), who shows Mathieu his incomprehensible architectural sketches at dinner and briefly threatens to spark the movie to life: He seems to be aware of more than he lets on. Alas, Franck butts out until it's time for him to show up wielding a chainsaw, which apparently isn't meant to be funny. Continue Reading »