Rock'n Roll is a 2017 French comedy film. It was directed by Guillaume Canet and it stars Canet, Marion Cotillard, Gilles Lellouche, Yvan Attal, Johnny Hallyday, Ben Foster... all as themselves.
Guillaume Canet realizes his public image is that of an ageing, orderly actor. He decides to change it radically.
Rock'n Roll provides examples of:
- Adam Westing: Guillaume Canet plays himself as a total idiot. Marion Cotillard also plays herself and she is often ridiculous, for example when she speaks Quebec French, when she pretends to limp for a role...
- Ambulance Cut: After taking drugs, Guillaume Canet starts dancing around like crazy. Cut to the ambulance men arriving on the spot.
- Amicable Exes: Marion Cotillard and Guillaume Canet after they split up. For example, Guillaume consoles Marion when she does not get a role.
- As Himself: Most of the actors play fictionalized versions of themselves.
- Book Ends: The film starts with an assistant looking for Guillaume Canet in his trailer on a film set. In the end, the same happens in Florida.
- Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario: After Guillaume Canet has plastic surgery, he breaks up with Marion Cotillard. In the end, they become reconciled.
- Brick Joke: Marion Cotillard asks Guillaume Canet to stop listening Quand je t'aime by Demis Roussos. When Guillaume breaks up with her, he tells her that he is fine with it because she never let him listen to Demis Roussos. When Marion wants to make up with him, she joins him in Florida and she sings Quand je t'aime for him.
- Butt-Monkey: Guillaume Canet. One of his testicles hurts. A young actress tells him that he is not attractive any more. He takes drug and ends up with a facial paralysis. His plastic surgery is a disaster. He breaks up with Marion Cotillard. He does not find jobs any more.
- Daydream Surprise: Guillaume Canet is waiting in a chair on the film set. Then he is seen in a nightclub, where he meets Camille Rowe and has sex with her in the toilets. Then he is woken up by an assistant: he fell asleep in the chair and the whole nightclub sequence was a dream.
- Direct Line to the Author: The director and writer of the film, Guillaume Canet, is also the main character, so he presents this film as a true story about his life. At some point in the film, Guillaume even talks about the plan to make a film about his own life with Yvan Attal.
- Glory Days: Guillaume Canet realizes that he cannot play juvenile lead roles any more and he regrets it.
- Hollywood Mid-Life Crisis: Guillaume Canet is 42. He tries to charm younger women. He wears inappropriately youthful clothes. He engages into plastic surgery and bodybuilding.
- Home-Early Surprise: Marion comes back home earlier than expected and she discovers that Guillaume has undergone plastic surgery.
- Imagine Spot:
- Guillaume Canet imagines that Marion Cotillard sings Pour que tu m'aimes encore in the same way as Céline Dion.
- When Johnny Hallyday appears for the first time, Guillaume Canet sees it like a stage appearance, with stage lights, music, audience shouts and stage clothes.
- When Guillaume and Marion make love, there are coloured lights like in a nightclub.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Parodied in the Crocodile Rangers sequence: the characters played by Guillaume and Marion move calmly forward in a hail of bullets that fail to hit them.
- Lost in Character: When Marion Cotillard practices Quebec French for a role in a Xavier Dolan film, she becomes unable to use standard French.
- Muscle Angst: Guillaume engages into bodybuilding to grow his muscles.
- Non-Human Sidekick: In Crocodile Rangers, the sidekick of Guillaume's character is a crocodile.
- The Prima Donna: Guillaume Canet becomes one when he realizes that he has the public image of an ageing, orderly actor: he refuses to play some scenes, he plays with a Southern French accent, he starts improvising, he throws a glass of wine in the face of Camille Rowe...
- Self-Deprecation: Guillaume Canet, the director, writer and leading actor of the film, describes himself as a frustrated and ageing actor.
- Separated by a Common Language: Guillaume Canet does not understand what Marion Cotillard says in Quebec French.
- Set Behind the Scenes: The film is about the life of film actor and director Guillaume Canet.
- Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: Guillaume Canet is a movie star, but his life is orderly. He tries to change it: he goes to parties where he takes drugs and tries to charm girls.
- Stock Footage: The footage of the 40th César Awards ceremony (2015) is used in the film.
- Stylistic Suck: Crocodile Rangers, the American series starring Guillaume Canet, is very cheesy. It parodies series like Lassie and Flipper.
- Training Montage: There is one when Guillaume does bodybuilding.
- Visit by Divorced Dad: After his separation from Marion Cotillard, Guillaume Canet meets regularly his son. When he is planning to move to Florida, he asks Marion if she would agree that their son visits him during the holidays.
