The movie is centered in life of a young man in the city of Paris, whose characterization is made by Robert Pattinson. The first half of the story seems to be a little slow paced, and made me wonder if it would ever engage, since apparently there was no interesting character or situation. However, after the first half, it seems that everything starts to work very well, and the film finally involves the audience-- mainly after Mr. Forestier's death. Mostly of that is due to the good acting of Pattinson, who proves to have improved considerably since his inexpressive acting in 2011's "Water for Elephants". Also, directing is something to be appreciate in here; directors are professional in delivering some tense scenes that suggest much of characters' thoughts. The sex scenes feel real, and I like the way characters touch each other before the "act" itself-- you know what I mean. The supporting cast is maybe better than average, and Clotilde's character was professionally played by Christina Ricci. It is indeed interesting to notice how the society was chauvinist; Duroy could sleep with as many women as he wanted to, but once he finds out that Madeleine was also cheating on him, he just freaks out. Even thought society has changed a lot in that aspect since the year this movie is supposed to represent, the situation I just mentioned still happens a lot-- at least where I live. All in all, "Bel Ami" proves to be a decent piece of work that didn't have the attention it deserved, to say the least.

3 days down the line and I'm still thinking about Bel Ami with Robert Pattinson. Unlike what you might have heard, it wasn't bad because of Robert Pattinson. Although it might seem incongruous to have him as the lead, he does, overall, an all right job and it is easy to forget that many of the female characters that he seduces throughout the film are, on occasions over twice his age. The issue doesn't necessarily lie, either, with the inevitable cuts made to the original plot line in order to produce a usable script. Indeed, the book needs to be concentrated in order to fit a 1"30' format and so things have to be somewhat truncated, concentrated and, on occasions, selected out of the the original work. The same way, some details will unavoidably be removed while others exaggerated and the characters will be simplified. Also, on occasions, the plot line of a book can be used as little more than a general framework on which a whole new piece is build. This was done with Great Expectations with Gwyneth Paltrow, and resulted in an OK flick. It was also done with Apocalypse Now and resulted in what is largely regarded as a masterpiece. Part of the disappointment, with Bel Ami is that the original piece is already extremely condensed and highly cinematic. The plot line is extremely linear and has few complexities. This is partly what makes it a classic. It's short, straight to the point, on occasions quite harshly so, unforgiving and might even change how you view what it means to be human. Bel Ami is a dark, unforgiving piece where humanity is seen as little more than a troupe of baboons, whose entire lives revolve around a game of bullying, violence, backstabbing and the constant rise and fall of a dominant Alpha Male.It talks of corruption and the interaction between the press and the political class and how the media control our lives by dispensing and retaining information, spreading rumours and, occasionally, fabricating fake information. As a matter of fact, Bel Ami himself ends up being ordered to take part in a proper western style show down by his publisher after being exposed as having fabricated false info.If you can't make a movie with that, then you probably shouldn't be making movies at all...So, once you have removed these elements from the original scripts, you are left little more than the characters, or at least some of them, and a lose plot line, although the characters become unavoidably flimsy, once they have lost their basic motivations and so the plot line starts making no sense at all. The only ones that comes out more or less unscathed are, as expected, Christina Ricci and Kristin Scott-Thomas, but they probably could be reading the phone book and still be interesting. Everyone else is struggling.What results is occasionally excellent actors saying their lines without a clue about what's going on in a low budget, half arsed Victorian reconstruction... Otherwise, the movie fails largely because of the editing. About halfway through, scenes suddenly start becoming shorter, jumping from one situation to the next in a totally disjointed way. For instance, nothing has been said of Suzanne's character or her relationship with Bel Ami. Also, unless you've read the novel, I wonder if anyone would understand why she suddenly appears in Bel Ami's coach or that he's kidnapping her... How to explain, then, that her father insists on their getting married on the spot?Other major irritants include the powder coated cast aluminium Ikea garden table used in every single scene at the Follies Bergeres; Forestier played by a bloke easily in his fifties, although purportedly a private under 26 years old Pattinson a few of years prior to the beginning of the movie; Their friendship turned into deep animosity by the scriptwriters, which make it impossible to account for Bel Ami visiting him on his deathbed; Bel Ami's small business owners family turned into illiterate peasants who rely in the curé to write weekly letters (hard to imagine Bel Ami or his family as keen church goers...) or his life of utter squalor which makes no sense at all for an office worker in a railway company... And, last but not least, the name of media mogul Walter changed to Rousset in order to remove any suggestion of his Jewish origins... There was a time when Hollywood producers insisted on ethnic and religious minorities characters in order to help viewers of different backgrounds feel included. Doing the opposite is offensive.

This film tells the story of a poor soldier's rise to the upper class in Paris.Robert Pattinson plays a poor soldier who uses his charm to seduce women in upper class circles. His stone cold face suits the plot well, and his unscrupulous manner in which he played with the women's hearts is revolting and almost spine chilling. His character is so unlikable, that it makes me have a negative effect on the film. Fortunately, the leading ladies all have great performances, Christina Ricci consistently charms, while Kristin Scott Thomas shines in the one scene where she was treated in an appalling way."Bel Ami" is am engaging adaptation of a classical story, and I enjoyed it because these three leading ladies are all my favorite actresses.

The movie well depicts a time of separation of the poor and rich with great scene visuals and costuming. I enjoyed the Twilight series with Rob and his brief part in Harry Potter. His closeups are good and show the emotions of the rags to riches and not so honest fellow. The leading actresses are good and I feel the story went a little slow with too much mischief shown rather than the artful editorial writing dialog for the newspaper. I checked this movie out on DVD from the local library. I also like the soundtrack. Believe the R rating though it is not surprising for the time period depicted. I think it is interesting there is dismay at some modern themes when historical works show us this type of display.