This prestige French drama about Gustave Eiffel, the man behind the famous Parisian monument, plays a little fast and loose with its facts. The film follows Eiffel – played by Romain Durais – as he constructs the 300-metre tower, thereby building a less historically solid romantic backstory to his reasoning behind the project and his relationship with Adrienne Bourges, played here by Sex Education’s bilingual Emma Mackey.
Eiffel had already contributed to the Statue Of Liberty, constructing it so it could withstand the battering of the weather. Initially uninterested in creating something for 1889’s Exposition Universelle in Paris, after a temporary tower was mooted Eiffel made a swift about-turn, even part-funding the project himself. Mystery surrounds the whys and wherefores, but in director Bourboulon’s film thwarted love is at the heart of Eiffel.
Eiffel – who in reality had nearly married Bourges years earlier when working for her aristocratic family – is supposed to have reconnected with her as this latest project began. She was the inspiration behind the Eiffel Tower’s construction, but is now married to another: the affair she and Eiffel subsequently have is charged with tension and possible scandal. Bourboulon’s film is respectful but rather inert, the passion between Durais and Mackey very watchable yet not entirely convincing.
The ins and outs of the construction of the Tower itself seem far more dynamic and interesting than the romance that surrounds it. The marvel of engineering was hated by the Pope, who believed it would overshadow Notre Dame cathedral; others objected to it both on aesthetic and safety grounds. A miracle of engineering, its various stages of development are recreated here by effective CGI. The film itself has a Sunday afternoon movie feel, Downton-esque in its overall execution. Solid and always watchable, as a film, Eiffel never quite reaches the Tower’s actual dramatic heights.
Dir: Martin Bourboulon (15, 108 mins)
Eiffel is in cinemas from Fri 12 Aug
words KEIRON SELF