"Love Affair(s)" -- Movie Review

 

This week during Lincoln Center’s French Film Festival, I streamed the romantic drama, “Love Affair(s)” (AKA, “The Things We Say, the Things We Do”). 

Synopsis

When a man’s visit with his cousin is interrupted by a sudden business trip, he’s forced to spend time with his cousin’s wife – but when they develop an attraction, will she leave her husband for him?

Story

Maxime (Niels Schneider) has travelled to the countryside to visit his cousin François (Vincent Macaigne) and François’ wife Daphné (Camélia Jordana).  Currently working as a translator, Maxime aspires to be a novelist; during downtime in his visit, he intends to spend it doing as much writing as possible.  The only obstacle he faces at this point is his own self-doubt.  Upon arrival at the train station, Maxime is met by Daphné, who informs him that his cousin is out of town for a few days due to a work emergency.   As a result, Maxime and Daphné will spend time alone in a big house awaiting François’ return.

Daphné, who is now three months pregnant with François’ baby, wants to get to know her husband’s cousin.  Since François told her about a recently failed romance which prompted the trip in the first place, she asks Maxime about what happened.  This sets into motion a long and unusual collection of stories about a number of his love affairs, which he eagerly shares with Daphné.  After an affair with a married woman ends when she moves to Japan to work with her husband, he runs into an old female friend, who rekindles romantic sparks.  Once Maxime introduces her to a male friend, the troika eventually form a “throuple”. 

As it turns out, Daphné has her own tales of romantic woe from her past.  When her hopes for a relationship with a mentor fades, she stumbles upon François.  She remains emotionally distant and unavailable to him, just using their trysts purely for sex.  François, however, doesn’t experience it the same way; the more he is with Daphné, the deeper he falls in love with her.  Finally, however, he reveals the truth:  he’s married.  At that point, François needs to figure out how to end things with his wife.  But as Daphné and Maxime exchange their stories, an intimacy develops.  Will she wind up leaving François for Maxime?              

Review

As you get drawn into the rabbit hole of odd love stories being told in “Love Affair(s)” (the original French title being “Les choses qu'on dit, les choses qu'on fait”), it is easy to overlook other details – such as the cinematography or the costume design, but especially, the soundtrack.  The music that was selected in this film was excellent – not only the choices, but also the decisions of when to use which piece of music.  It is certainly part of the magic of this movie in that it hooks you in on an emotional level so that you find yourself deeply involved in scenes that would otherwise seem superficial. 

It seems that only the French can adequately encapsulate the feelings of love – or perhaps more accurately, the sensuality – that people feel and all too often bury in the course of their life, resulting in a form of self-sabotage.  We sometimes seem to deliberately dehumanize ourselves when we ignore our most primal urges and desires.  French filmmakers have reminded us over the years that this is wrong – we’ve got it backwards.  An almost hedonistic philosophy, they seem to be telling us to live your life through your soul rather than through your material possessions. 

Following the screening, there was an interview with the film’s writer/director, Emmanuel Mouret.  One of the themes of “Love Affair(s)” is the idea of love being a possessive act versus being an act of selflessness.  The director said that he took this theme as a starting point for his film – it is a complex gesture in that it takes kindness and devotion, yet it is done in a manipulative fashion and the character who claims to have done this has simply lied in order to save herself.  Mouret said that the idea for the movie did not come from a need to try to convey a message.  Instead, he found the concept of multiple concurrent (and complicated) love stories being told to be exciting.