Mr. Stein Goes Online
(Un Profil Pour Deux)(2018)
Pierre Richard (The Fugitives), one of France’s supreme elder farceurs, stars in Stéphane Robelin's (All Together) modern take on the Cyrano de Bergerac story.... More
"Pierre is a retired widower who hasn’t left his house for two years. On the insistence of his daughter, he learns how to indulge in the delights of the Internet, thanks to some patience from a young man, Alex (Yaniss Lespert, What’s in a Name?), who is hired as Pierre’s computer tutor. On a dating site, Pierre meets the young and gorgeous ‘flora63’ (Fanny Valette, Little Jerusalem) who wants to meet him. But, given Pierre has used Alex’s head shot for his profile, he needs to convince Alex to take his place at the rendezvous." (Alliance Française)Hide
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Directed by Stéphane Robelin ('All Together', 'Real Movie')
Starring Pierre Richard, Yaniss Lespert, Fanny Valette, Stéphane Bissot, Stéphanie Crayencour, Gustave Kervern, Macha Méril, Anna Bederke
Written by Stéphane Robelin
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Mr. Stein Goes Online
The Press Reviews
A burgeoning romance that feels emotionally hollow and is further let down by its clumsy ending. Full Review
Recommended for those who like their comedy broad and their more mature cinematic characters brazen. Full Review
Stephane Robelin's Mr Stein Goes Online is Cyrano de Bergerac for the age of the internet, a traditional feelgood movie given a modern gloss. It's also a little discomforting, in ways that Robelin may not have entirely thought through. Full Review
A film that plays it safe, tying up loose ends and treating all its characters with forgiveness. Full Review
BY Tony Stamp Flicks Writer
Despite sounding like an instructional video for aging boomers, Mr Stein Goes Online is in fact a French farce — albeit one about an aging boomer.... More
It opens with a drunken meet cute between good-looking youngsters Alex and Juliette. There is vomit involved and some gorgeous footage of central Paris. Moments later, we’re meeting Mr Stein just moments before he Goes Online for the first time.
He’s being helped by Alex, and the interweaving of their two lives is the backbone for the film, helped along by farce staples like eavesdropping and mistaken identity.
Seventy five-year old Stein of course promptly starts using the internet’s main function: thirsting after the opposite sex. Pretty soon he’s catfishing someone while pretending to be young, handsome Alex.
Alex meanwhile turns out to be a sulky man-child who’d rather spend time with a septuagenarian than the girlfriend he’s sponging off, all while looking like a younger, grumpier Javier Bardem.
He meets Stein’s internet girlfriend in real life, and from there the film plays out like a weird riff on Cyrano De Bergerac, before turning into something much more morally queasy. The machinations of the plot get downright painful to watch in fact, not helped by the total lack of sympathetic characters. The minor roles - Alex’s girlfriend and her mother - are fine, but behind their charm Alex and Stein are truly awful, and I don’t think the film realises that.
Selfish protagonists are often rewarded in movies, but Mr Stein Goes Online goes so far past that it almost feels like satire. It’s not though. It’s just lazy. This type of farce already feels old-fashioned, and when the film tries to shrug off its characters' lack of morals it winds up making the film feel equally dated.Hide
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