If “La La Land” left you cold, take heart: There are better new musicals out there. Exhibit A: the French “Footnotes,” which sets its show tunes in a workers’ strike at a shoe factory. Sexy, eh?
Actually, it is.
Like the Emma Stone-Ryan Gosling vehicle, it pays homage to old Hollywood, but the plot — about working women fighting for their livelihood — is a lot more entertaining than hearing someone drone on about how it’s hard to break into acting. Or jazz.
Julie (Pauline Etienne) is a young woman who’s pingponged from one crappy, low-paying McJob after another before landing in the stockroom of a luxury shoe company. Alas, its president (Loïc Corbery) plans to ship the business to China.
When the other workers — women, all — get wind of the scheme, they put on a spectacular series of showdowns, one of which sees Corbery doing some charming, duplicitous soft-shoe. Meanwhile, Julie’s romanced by a James Dean-esque truck driver (Olivier Chantreau), who maintains you do what you have to do, even if it means breaking the picket line.
Directors Paul Calori and Kostia Testut keep the running time short and the songs flowing. I enjoyed all of it immensely right up until one of the most disappointing endings I can remember — the last few minutes genuinely seem like someone else wrested control from the directing duo.
“Footnotes” isn’t perfect, but at least nobody lectured me about jazz.