Eiffel

Eiffel bears some comparison with the behemoth that was Titanic in that they in and of themselves have fantastic stories strong enough to carry the films, without the need of love story, or anything else. That was the certainly the case with the bloated Titanic and the DiCaprio/Winslet dragging anchor. I'll note that 1958's A Night To Remember concentrated on the tragedy providing a far more emotive film.

So Eiffel as a side-line concerns itself the construction of the tower, an engineering marvel that required innovative thinking to solve the problems of building near a river and residents not to mention the politics and finances.

However director Martin Bourboulon and writer Caroline Bongrand push forward, and by admission free adaptation, a romance between the engineer Gustave Eiffel (Romain Duris) and socialite Adrienne Bourgès (Emma Mackey) whom he first meets while constructing a bridge over the Garonne, nr Bordeaux. They are initially quite taken be each other; he a dashing engineer with a social conscience, she the beautiful daughter of the major financier of the project. They fall in love though it can never be.

Years later Eiffel is contracted to design and build the tower after winning the competition for the 1989 Paris World’s Fair. Who should return but Adrienne with her husband Antoine (Pierre deladonchamps). With residual affection still there, they far too publicly display it complicating their relationships. Arguably he requires Antoine more than Adrienne as he is a leading light and carries some influence on a project that is hitting financial and labour buffers.

The Eiffel/Adrienne love story is told via flashbacks and memory – the viewer can tell as Eiffel has less of a beard – which tells us a little about his social conscience but no more than when he faces an angry workforce at the tower telling them he will increase their pay or when he is consulting with engineers guaranteeing that there will be no deaths.

What it does is introduce a rather bland element that weighs the film down and extends the running time to close to two hours. But the major problem is that there’s very little empathy for these two – credit where credit’s due Cameron was onto a winner with Titanic in this respect – and so no real interest in what happens to them.

The film does look magnificent with excellent use of technology for the construction of the tower. Indeed the film is at its strongest when the film concerns itself with the politicking, professional jealousies, finances and down in the mud or up the structure construction scenes. It takes on a much more interesting dimension and leading to far more dynamic interplay between the characters.