There are certain things you can tell about a neighbor in advance: Are they nosy? Would they be willing to share an ingredient in a pinch, or a bottle of booze for a party? Would they say “hello” in the morning or be on the same page about avoiding eye contact when bringing in the trash? If there’s one thing that can’t be known in advance, though, it’s how a neighbor will respond to being told that there’s a body in your kitchen. You either have to spit it out and tell them, or avoid the subject altogether.
In Mervyn LeRoy’s Moment to Moment, Kay (Jean Seberg) decides to tell her neighbor, Daphne (The Avengers‘ Honor Blackman), the truth – there’s a body in her kitchen and she doesn’t know what to do. Daphne’s response is everything Kay could’ve hoped for, but shouldn’t have been able to expect.
For most of the first half of Moment to Moment, Kay regales Daphne with the events leading up to Ensign Mark Dominic (Sean Garrison) winding up on her kitchen floor. The second half follows Kay and Daphne’s attempts to cover up what happened while being investigated by a way too on-the-ball and overly invested police officer (Grégoire Aslan).
Set (and for the most part filmed) in France, Moment to Moment is an American movie, but one that doesn’t forget where it’s supposed to be taking placing and actually has characters speaking French semi-regularly. Seberg, while American, often lived in France and spoke the language. Not to mention she is probably most associated today with her performance in Jean-Luc Goddard’s Breathless.
However, Seberg’s look in Moment to Moment is very different from her look in Breathless. Less herself (or at least her signature pixie cut) and more like one of Alfred Hitchcock’s blondes, it feels a little bit like she’s being forced into a mold instead of being celebrated for why she was cast and not Tippi Hedren or Kim Novak.
That being said, this is a fashionable movie, especially when it comes to the outfits Yves Saint-Laurent designed for Seberg. Simple but classy, it’s just Seberg’s hairstyle that feels taken from other actresses.
Based on a story by Alec Coppel, Coppel and John Lee Mahin’s screenplay revels in a lot of ridiculousness that makes it a blast to watch. At first it’s minor silliness (like Kay’s seemingly endless supply of vodka or the product placement for a game called Blockhead), but the police investigation brings out crazier and crazier coincidences and strange behavior.
For all of the trouble the film took to do so much filming on location, the moments that were filmed on-set stick out like a sore thumb, especially the rear projection shots where Kay and Mark are “driving” but outlined in blue. Another why-even-go-to-the-trouble moment involves Mark, who establishes early on that he doesn’t drink, but instead of using that background to explain why Mark’s demeanor changes, the timing gets botched.
It’s a flawed film, but one where those flaws only make it more charming. Even an awkwardly-edited opening scene can’t stop it (and the scene makes a lot more sense in context but you don’t need narrative confusion right out the gate, unless the point was to cast suspicion on Daphne).
Bonus Features:
In their commentary, film historians Howard S. Berger and Nathaniel Thompson consider how the film may have been hurt by comparisons to Douglas Sirk and Alfred Hitchcock. Before listening to their commentary, I had forgotten that the flashback was told from Kay’s point of view – I just thought it was a flashback, because other than Kay setting it up, there’s no voiceover during it to remind viewers she’s telling the story. This raises so many questions about Kay’s reliability as narrator and made me have to rethink my first impressions of her that were based on the flashback being true. Thankfully, Berger and Thompson made me realize what I had missed. They also breakdown Kay’s self-sabotaging ways and the film’s decision not to make any suspense out of Kay and Daphne disposing of Mark’s body. Usually a film would milk that tension for all it’s worth. Moment to Moment just skips it.
Moment to Moment is available on Blu-ray now from Kino Lorber.
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