Confession

This is an anglo-saxon movie presupposed on The Romanticism of the Early 1800 's of Northern France. Scenes of Celtic Brittany and Germany give it away clearly. The movie is a polemic of sorts showing a viewer that love is either death or life. The obvious and tedious even grating truth is that is is both and neither. Charlotte's genius suffers and still shines through amongst a college theater seeming ensemble type who enjoy dressing up in period pieces for their own enjoyment.

Why it was made to seem "big"? Not sure. Cannes seems to pick out some movies just because they nod French, sad really, but i suppose they highlight aspects of France's vast cultural influence, how ever trite and shallow they may portray it. Does anyone ever ask if it really serves the purpose then?

I was very surprised to read the negative reviews. This story is spot on!!! If it reminds you of Great Gatsby (the DiCaprio version of which followed this movie a year later, in 2013), that is not by accident. Another movie, that comes to mind after seeing it, is Suntan (2016)...

Without any spoilers, the unfolding of the events of this romantic 'love' has absolutely realistic twists & turns, full of lessons for both the young and the more mature. The acting is really great (Gainsburg never really fails in anything), and I think the story benefited greatly from the fact that the novel was written by a man (Musset), while the script was written by a woman (Verheyde).

This is an evergreen story, enjoy it, learn from it! 10/10

So difficult to feel empathy for the neurosis of the elite

Lots of mumbling about love and not enough substantial storyline for me. Gainsbourg carried the acting component in this film but the other cast needed more direction... A long movie trying to be too stylish and delivering mostly fluff....

The only burning question I came from this movie asking myself was: was didn't French men in the second quarter of the 19th c. Ever seem to comb their hair?

Not only was Pete Doherty's performance monochromatically lackluster - but his hair was so constantly in his eyes that I, for one, simply could not get past wanting to just hand him a comb and yell: Try it, dude!!!!!

Ugh, thruout the flick, it looks like that affected coff of his literally likely has small infestations of bugs in it.

So, enough of that, you get it - annoying, repulsive.

As for the rest of it: for a period piece the sets were elaborate - albeit limited as they were in range (a "period" chandelier'd salon, or oak tables dining, or candle lit bed room here, a forested field there, a series of scenes from the same bumpy rural carriage ride) - the costuming was studied for accuracy, the tonality was period "sepia by candlelight", the casting utterly banal - extravagantly buxom "society" women, wizened clerics and old men, crocheting elderly matrons, oh so merrily square-dancing albeit grimy workers, etc etc etc

On the bright side, Charlotte Gainsbourg was, as always, excellent - always elegantly charming in a very simply way - so sorry she got mired in this swamp muck of a thing - chemistry w. Doherty? Zero - I don't blame her, that hair ...(and likely just as well for her character since his - 19th haute bourgeois debauchee - likely suffered his unremitting gloom of existential angst from a foully perduring case of physical syphilis than anything "cerebral"

An oh, the musical soundtracks were completely out of joint - inexplicable as choices.