Quick take: Before I Forget

The old song says "When the end comes I know / I'll be just a gigolo / Life goes on without me." David Lee Roth (after Louis Prima) sang it in less than five minutes, with room left over for "I Ain't Got Nobody." In Before I Forget, writer/director/star Jacques Nolot takes a full 108 to get the same points across. But stories about The End should drive slowly and inexorably to their conclusions, and it's weirdly intriguing to watch Nolot's character, Pierre Pruez, talking... talking... talking... about his life and regrets. At 58, he's a writer and former gay gigolo living in Paris, now hiring his own young partners. He sees his analyst three times a week and hangs out with his aging friends, also ex-gigolos. And it turns out that the bonds with their old "clients" are still there, though just hanging on. They worry out loud about wills, priceless art, blood relatives coming out of the woodwork. But the beauty of this very particular film about a very particular man is that it's also universal. In the end, all the riches of the world can't really be ours, and all we have is our memories and what we've become.