Cancer. He’s the last visitor you’d want buzzing the gate of your postcard-perfect European estate. That’s right: “he,” not “it.” A cackling, curly mopped, balding troll of a man in a gray suit and red tie who thinks it’s time you and he had a drink together, an inconsiderate imp who also points out that you shouldn’t be so angry at him for threatening to cut short your tragic failure of a life. Yet that’s exactly who arrives at Pulitzer Prize-winning author and unabashed lush Charles Faulque’s sunny hillside hideaway one day in the dark French comedy The Clink of Ice. Seen only by Faulque and those who love him — a short list that includes his sad-sack maid Louisa and his teen son who no longer lives with him since his wife, fed up with his drinking, walked out on him. Louisa, his cancer, and his angelic Russian lover Evguenia sum up the constant companions in his self-indulgent misery. Except, of course, the constant clink of the ice bucket of white wine he schleps everywhere.
Faulque and his cancer become intimate companions lying in bed together in the same boxers, sipping wine by the pool, sometimes arguing, sometimes pleasantly chatting like old friends. It’s bizarre but intriguing to watch, just like Louisa’s pleading for more time with her breast cancer, a sinister Mary Poppins in a black polka-dot dress. The Clink of Ice is also, by the way, a love story. Louisa has long lusted after and pined for the handsomely distinguished Charles even when he’s reduced to aimless days spent chugging vino in his mink-collared coat, followed around by his malignant toadie.
The Clink of Ice is a romance, a quirky existential conversation punctuated with rueful wit, and a human confrontation with mortality (and attempt to outwit it) that somehow avoids being overly maudlin or predictable. It’s a strangely appealing cocktail that, as unnatural as it seems, you can’t help but savor.
Grade: B-
