'The Electric Kiss' Review: Cannes Opens With a Thud — a 'Light' French Period Romance About an Artist and a Fake Psychic, but the Movie Is Inert
May 12, 2026 1:00pm PT
‘The Electric Kiss’ Review: Cannes Opens With a Thud — a ‘Light’ French Period Romance About an Artist and a Fake Psychic, but the Movie Is Inert
It wants to be a romp AND a lofty meditation on love and art and illusion. But it's a tale of fake magic with no real magic.
By
Owen Gleiberman
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Owen Gleiberman
Chief Film Critic
@OwenGleiberman
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Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival
When you consider all the care and taste and politics and planning that go into the yearly execution of the Cannes Film Festival, you’d think that coming up with a tasty and satisfying opening-night film — a movie that delights, or at least pleases, the festival audience, stoking its appetite for the treasures to come — would not require the French equivalent of rocket science. The opening-night selection needn’t be the best film in the festival; it hardly needs to be a major film. But surely it should be an inviting one.
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