The brilliant actors of slightly different generations, Sandrine Kiberlain and Vincent Macaigne, play the roles of Charlotte and Simon, two characters of different nature who meet in a bar and decide to embark on a relationship with a rather unusual premise regarding sex, courtship, and a future together. Admirable; no unnecessary moralising here. But what happens to passion, or the other parties in the scenario?
Interpreted by Kiberlain, often seen in much more neurotic roles, the free-spirited Charlotte is an enviably determined and controlling single mother. Macaigne, on the other hand, in his typical role of a “mumbling” wussy, is Simon the family man, adrift in a so-called happy marriage. There is no escaping the build-up of attraction as the chemistry between the actors gradually takes over.
This diaristic “scenes from a relationship” is about as far removed from Ingmar Bergman’s classic Scenes from a Marriage as Catholicism is from Protestantism, or Paris in spring from Scandinavia in winter. Emmanuel Mouret’s light-hearted romantic comedy is as charming as the accompanying piano music by Mozart.
The sophisticatedly cultured talkativeness of the middle-aged French middle classes in this beautiful film could be annoying, were it not for the points produced by a certain irony, freshness, and a well-timed twist. The complex paths of love, the hidden depths of the human mind, are beyond calculation when emotions take over.
Timo Malmi