The French sure do love their ménage a trois.
(2018) Drama (Strand) Vincent Lacoste, Pierre Deladonchamp, Denis Podalydės, Clėment Mėtayer, Adėle Wismes, Thomas Gonzalez, Quentin Thėbault, Tristan Farge, Sophie Letourneur, Marlėne Saldana, Luca Malinowski, Rio Vega, Loïc Mobihan, Mathilda Doucourė, Eric Vigner, Tibo Drouet, Jean-Frėdėric Lemoues, Teddy Rogaert, Thibaud Boursier, Adėle Csech. Directed by Christophe Honorė
Paris in 1993 was as ever beautiful, seductive and cosmopolitan. For the gay community, it was also the era of AIDS, a time when great numbers of that community fell victim to the disease. Jacques (Deladonchamp) is a successful playwright and a single father. He has been suffering from writer’s block in his career but also sort of in his life as well. His love life is in neutral, particularly since he’s contracted the disease himself. He continues to carry on essentially as before but he knows his time is short. While on a trip to Brittany for an arts festival, he meets Arthur (Lacoste) who is a 22-year-old film student who has become increasingly sexually indifferent to his girlfriend Nadine (Wismes). He is on the cusp of discovering his bisexuality and he falls deeply in love with Jacques when they have a chance encounter in a movie theater.
Jacques returns to Paris and his friend and neighbor Mathieu (Podalydės) who has become something of a confidante and who may harbor romantic feelings of his own for Jacques. For his own part, Jacques is reluctant to start something he knows he can’t finish but at the same time he is extremely drawn to Arthur and his youthful exuberance. Jacques wonders if he wants to spend what time he has left alone or with someone he loves.
Honorė is a distinctively French director whose films often have a bittersweet quality to them, although not to the degree here. This is a movie that seems to me to have come from a deep place inside the director. Unfortunately, films of that nature sometimes lead to overly long movies and this one is definitely guilty of that.
There are some moments of sheer joy (a dance in the apartment between Arthur, Mathieu and Jacques is a highlight) and moments of dizzying pathos. Lacoste does a really good job as Arthur and while Deladonchamp is a fine actor, his Jacques is prone at times to being a little more inwardly directed to be truly approachable. All in all, this is a good movie that I wish I could have connected with more deeply but the length and Jacques’ occasional remoteness prevented me from doing so.
REASONS TO SEE: It’s Love in the Time of Cholera for the AIDS generation.
REASONS TO AVOID: The movie is way, way, WAY too long. At times the film gets pretentious.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity and plenty of sexual content.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: During the course of the film, Arthur makes a big deal about being from Brittany while his two roommates are Parisians, Lacoste is actually from Paris while the actors playing the roommates are not.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/5/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 87% positive reviews: Metacritic: 75/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Love in the Time of Cholera
FINAL RATING: 4.5/10
NEXT: Dead Pigs
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