Pretty girl, prettier boys.
(2010) Romantic Comedy (IFC) Monia Chokri, Nils Schneider, Xavier Dolan, Anne Dorval, Anne-Elisabeth Bosse, Olivier Morin, Magalie Lepine-Blondeau, Eric Bruneau, Gabriel Lessard, Benedicte Decary, Anthony Huneault, Patricia Tulasne, Jody Hargreaves, Clara Palardy, Minou Petrowski, Perrette Souplex, Louis Garrel, Sophie Desmarais. Directed by Xavier Dolan
Love is tricky, particularly when friendship is involved. You feel one way towards your best friend and another towards someone you love. Once in awhile though you find yourself competing with your best friend for the love of someone and that makes perfect sense. When you think about it, if you have enough in common to be best friends, why not tastes in lovers?
That’s what happens to Marie (Chokri) and Francis (Dolan). He’s a gay man and she a straight woman. They share a Montreal apartment and well heck, just about everything. However when they meet Nicolas (Schneider) at a party, all bets are off. Marie falls for him deeply and Francis does as well. Both of them are reading things into Nicolas admittedly flirtatious gestures. Each one believes that Francis is more interested in them.
Things escalate as each of them vie for Nicolas’ attention and shower him with increasingly lavish gifts. Things culminate in a vacation at the cabin owned by Nicolas’ mom. Who will Nicolas choose?
This is a movie that isn’t always easy to take in. For one thing, Nicolas is a bit of a jerk. He is clearly manipulative and misleading the both of them, although for their parts they do a lot of seeing things the way they want to when it comes to him. This isn’t the kind of love story you’re used to seeing – these are very flawed people in not always nice ways.
There have been a pretty good number of promising French-Canadian directors that have come along in the last ten years and Dolan is one of the most talented of these. This isn’t my favorite of his films – it carries with it a little too much self-conscious hipness which I always find abhorrent. While I understand that hipsters are people too, I find their attitudes to be somewhat condescending at times and that kind of bugs me. Being cool generally means understanding that everyone has their own idea of what cool is and that may not necessarily be what you think it is.
In any case, the performances here are solid and the story well-written and realistic. While it has received a good amount of critical attention, it just didn’t connect with me. Fortunately, other Dolan films have and I’m pretty sure future films will.
WHY RENT THIS: Looks at the effects of a love triangle somewhat more realistically.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Hipper than thou.
FAMILY VALUES: A good deal of sexuality with some nudity as well as some rough language and adult situations.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Dolan supplies the voice of Stan in the French version of South Park.
NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $588,383 on an unknown production budget.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Jules et Jim
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: U-571
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