Woody Allen in Exile: ‘Coup De Chance’ Finally Arrives On Streaming, Where No One Will Shame You For Watching

Now streaming on VOD, Coup de Chance is Woody Allen’s 50th theatrically-released feature length film. (Throw in television movies, screenplays adapted by others, a streaming series, anthology shorts, and other projects and that number grows much higher.) Though loathed by many (and we’ll remind you of why in a bit), the 88-year-old writer-director-performer’s influence on culture is undeniable. The image of the bespectacled redhead worrying his way through the streets of New York City is as fundamental to the moving image as Charlie Chaplin twirling his cane, John Wayne riding a horse, or Leonard Nimoy raising an eyebrow in fascination. And while he’ll always be best known for lovelorn character-based comedies like Annie Hall and Hannah and Her Sisters, a body of work this expansive allows for subcategories within the corpus. 

His newest film, which translates from French to mean “stroke of luck,” is another of his Dostoyevsky-inspired inquiries into crime and punishment, as seen in Match Point, Irrational Man, Cassandra’s Dream and Crimes and Misdemeanors. Indeed, one of Allen’s childhood obsessions, along with performing magic tricks and listening to New Orleans jazz, was pulp crime fiction. “Murder is the most common denominator through history for getting something done effectively,” he once joked at a press conference. 

Coup de Chance, however, doesn’t spotlight a criminal mastermind so much as show what happens when you have the dumb fortune to cross paths with someone who won’t hesitate in “getting something done effectively.” Our central character Fanny (the striking Lou de Laâge) makes a chance encounter with Alain (Niels Schneider) on a Paris street. Both in their early 30s now, they knew each other a bit at the French Lycee in New York City years ago. (Naturally, Alain had a huge crush on her.) He is a struggling novelist, she works at an art gallery and is married to Jean, a wealthy, older financier (Melvil Poupaud). It seems, at first, like a stroke of luck.

The two schedule a time to meet again and, eventually, a romance blossoms. (France!) Concurrently, Fanny begins to not only recognize that she’s essentially a trophy wife, but her husband may have achieved his wealth through less-than-scrupulous (understatement) means. 

Coup de Chance is shot in France in the French language because Europe is the only place where Woody Allen can get funding for his work. His name is mud in the United States after the #MeToo movement reminded many that he was accused of molesting his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow in 1993. (Allen has denied the allegation for decades and the Connecticut state’s attorney did not charge him following an investigation. You can read more about the case for hours and hours from every point of view and make up your own mind.) The artist-in-exile element in the new movie is evident for those paying close attention; some characters remark they wish they were back in New York, and Jean, the villain, has an obsession with model trains. Allen defenders frequently point to an inconsistency in the molestation charge focused on a questionable appearance of a model train. (You can click this link for more, but this is a never-ending rabbit hole, I’m warning you.) 

The wider point, however, is that if we were in a parallel universe in which Allen’s case was not relitigated after #MeToo, Coup de Chance would be set in New York, would star someone like Dakota Johnson, and there’d be talk of an Oscar nomination later this year. (Famously, Diane Keaton, Mira Sorvino, Penélope Cruz, Cate Blanchett, and Diane Wiest, twice, are all women who have won Oscars for their turns in Allen’s films; seven others were nominated.) 

This isn’t to take away anything from Lou de Laâge’s performance, who is absolutely striking in the primary role of a woman awakening from bourgeois complacency, only to discover that things were a heck of a lot easier when she was asleep. Coup de Chance’s other big win is the evocative, color-saturated interiors shot by Italian cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. I’m not quite sure why he felt the need to light each apartment as if rimmed with stained glass, but it sure does pop on screen. 

Allen is 88 years old and, let’s be blunt, his last two pictures Rifkin’s Festival and A Rainy Day in New York, were pretty lousy. This one is considerably sharper, though it does take a little while to get rolling. There’s a stretch at around the 30 minute mark where you may wonder if any story is coming at all, or if you are just here to watch two very attractive French people fall in love. Then again, there are worse things! Plotless does not mean boring, and, I dunno, a walk in a park with Lou de Laâge nibbling on a baguette is not exactly time ill-spent, in my opinion. 

Though now easily streamed by anyone willing to pay $6.99, only a few theaters are showing Coup de Chance. And before a deal was in place, some sneaky cinephiles were actually watching the movie at secret underground screenings. However, a representative from Quad Cinemas in New York, an independent theater that frequently shows chancier work, tells me that ticket sales have been “robust,” with solid pre-sales into the new week. “It may be the best opening weekend we’ve had since the pandemic,” she wrote. 

Is Woody Allen back? No, he’s 88. If he makes another movie, it’ll likely be a similar production, with non-Hollywood actors and on foreign soil. But if you aren’t totally skeeved out by watching a Woody Allen movie (and you are well within your right to reject his work and the work of anyone else that makes you uncomfortable!) you may find that this late work, coming after two real clunkers, is graced by a stroke of luck. 

Jordan Hoffman is a writer and critic in New York City. His work also appears in Vanity Fair, The Guardian, and the Times of Israel. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, and tweets about Phish and Star Trek at @JHoffman.