Gainsbourg ***

Biopics are a tricky genre. The challenge is to engage someone who knows all the facts already, and someone else who knows none. I fell into the latter category. The only things I knew about Serge Gainsbourg before the start of the film were that he was French, and he wrote the song that was used in the beer advert with the sexy ladybirds. 

Now I know a bit more, though the actual biographical details are quite confusing. Wives and lovers come and go without much explanation. And I have no idea how many children he had. Though maybe he didn’t either. 

This is more than a run of the mill ‘The Life and Times of Serge Gainsbourg’ movie however. It is based on the graphic novel by Joann Sfar, who also directs the film. We meet Serge as a young boy in Nazi-occupied Paris, when he still went by the name of Lucien Ginsburg. He makes up stories for his sisters, and from these stories springs the most surreal, and probably most enjoyable, part of the film. He invents a character, a kind of nightmarish man-sized puppet alter-ego that follows him round into adulthood, whispering to him his insecurities and ambitions. 

This surreal element disappears about half an hour from the end of the film, and with it went my interest. Maybe a huge fan of Serge Gainsbourg would have enjoyed seeing him record a reggae version La Marseillaise, but for me it really added nothing to the complex and interesting character that had been presented for the first three quarters of the film. 

So, basically, I think for a Serge Gainsbourg fan it would be great: a biopic with lots of songs, plus quirky, innovative elements. And lots of beautiful women. No ladybirds though.