LOREN & ROSE – Review

The elegant, fascinating Jacqueline Bisset stars in LOREN & ROSE, as an aging star interviewing with a young filmmaker named Loren (Kelly Blatz) for a role in the filmmaker’s first feature film, after his first film, a short, became a hit on the film festival circuit. Loren is a fan of Rose (Bisset) but is unsure if he should cast her as the lead in his new film. Over appetizers at her favorite restaurant, and waited on by her favorite waiter, Rose charms young director Loren, and starts them on the path to friendship.

Jacqueline Bisset was a superstar in the early ’70s, appearing in a string of high-profile hits, including the Steve McQueen hit BULLIT and Francois Truffaut’s DAY FOR NIGHT, and worked with directors including John Huston, Roman Polanski and George Cukor and starred with Paul Newman, Nick Nolte, Kenneth Branagh and Jean-Paul Belmondo. She seemed to be everywhere for a while. But it has been awhile since we have seen her on the big screen.

LOREN & ROSE takes place in little sequences, over three courses at different times at the same beloved restaurant. There is a touch of MY DINNER WITH ANDRE in their wide-ranging conversations over a meal but the three courses at three different visits also follow the evolution of the relationship between this still vibrate star and the somewhat timid young gay director. There is a framing devise, about an estranged daughter organizing an auction of the star’s possession in the future, after her mysterious disappearance.

There have been a spate of these films featuring beautiful and talented stars of the past. Bisset certainly fits that description but her on-screen presence is more powerful than others. Charming, warm. and bold, Bisset casts her spell over the audience as surely as she does over the young director, with her soft, faint British accent and sharp wit. Bisset has lost none of her charm and even retains much of her good looks along with a feline grace when she moves.

The sequences in the restaurant let her showcase her talent as an actor, often underused in her youth when audiences were dazzled by her beauty.

Like those other films, LOREN & ROSE is clearly intended as a showcase for Bisset’s still-considerable talents. There are some parallels in the story to Bisset’s own life and career but its not a biopic. The parallels allow Bisset to speak to some of that past but mostly it allows her to play a magical, irresistible character, going through a number of life changes.

LOREN & ROSE is a simple, low-budget production that exists largely as a showcase for Bisset but it certainly does deliver on that goal. Bisset is very much a winning acting force here, going through a range of emotions as the story about a friendship between star and director shifts in each single-course meal – appetizer, main course and dessert – vignettes to the next.

The plot is thin but it is a joy to watch Bisset work, and hopefully this film will lead to more chances to see her work. If there is one of these great stars of the past featured in recent film who deserves a second chance and a new chapter to their career, it is Jacqueline Bisset. Fingers crossed that we’ll see her again before long.

LOREN & ROSE is available streaming starting Tuesday, Jan. 28, on Amazon Prime.

RATING: 2.5 out of 4 stars