Cousin cousine

I saw this in high school when it first came out.

It is very charming and sweet.

It was one of the first foreign languages I saw with subtitles. Since then I have been a strong follower of foreign films.

It is interesting that there are some strongly negative responses in the other comments, that such a gentle sweet film can register such strong responses.

I look at it as a bit of a fantasy ... that it is not there to really ask us to work out the nitty gritty of what happens to children or the other relationships. It sorta says ... how would you be in this situation? Anyway .. a very nice foreign film.

French cinema is perhaps the only cinema in the world where a man can cheat on a stunning woman like Marie-France Pisier and it looks fairly "normal" and believable. "Cousin, Cousine" does not break much new ground thematically, but it does have plenty of charm and wit, as well as a wonderful cast (especially the two leads, Marie-Christine Barrault and Victor Lanoux). It is also pointed in its observations about male hypocrisy and double-standards, probably the contribution of female co-screenwriter Daniele Thompson. Nominated for several Oscars, this dramedy belongs in the same period of popular French films as "La Cage Aux Folles", although it is considerably more low-key. *** out of 4.

This movie was great. It was shown on Bravo cable channel here in America. I was a little buzzed from a night out and came back and found this flic on.

I got it right at the beginning and was taken by the charming chemistry between the two cousins and the very sly and low-key nature of the relationship. That was a great part of the appeal of the movie for me. I also liked the two lead performances. Both were quite quietly confident and did not feel the need to throw themselves at the viewer in order to be seen.

I enjoyed the fact that they thought about how best to get a rise out of their significant others. Well, I thought that was interesting and it showed two thoughtful people considering how best to achieve their goal and not totally consumed by lust. The reactions of the two effected spouses were very funny too. The two who were in the affair were very funny as they tried to contrive more and more ways to get back at their spouses. It was very interesting and not as glossed over as Hollywood films in which it takes the two cheating partners about 17.23 seconds to jump in the sack together. This movie played itself out and one could see how they moved from a platonic to a full relationship.

"Cousin Cousine" had a huge popular success in the United States (as probably everywhere else) when it was released in the 1970s. It is nothing more than a love story about a middle-aged man and woman who are estranged from their respective spouses. They openly profess and privately consummate their love, everybody be damned. The movie's value lies in its anarchic and refreshingly droll (drôle?) spirit. The lovers are the lovely Christine Barrault and her cousin by marriage, Victor Lanoux. They win our sympathy because they are such a delightful contrast to the sham and self-pity of their respective mates, Guy Marchand and Marie-France Pisier. Marchand is an especially hilarious cranky type. Jean-Charles Tacchella directed this bubbly and, yes, "gallic" comedy with wit and sensitivity, and you can't help enjoying it immensely. So all this makes adultery OK? Well, we at least are supposed to think that. The movie was remade in 1989 as "Cousins" with Isabella Rossellini and Ted Danson in the two leading roles.

Two adult cousins go well beyond the kissing stage in this lighthearted French comedy, a popular choice for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, thanks in large part to its casually forthright attitude toward the joys of physical affection. The two lovers, each already married, are blithely unconcerned with the opinions of others, taking an altogether healthy pleasure in scandalizing their extended (bourgeois) family by retiring to the bedroom for hours on end during holiday reunions, and so forth. A surplus of natural charm, combined with a refreshing (and typically French) lack of romantic melodrama, make it an easy film to enjoy, and an unsurprising candidate for the inevitable glossy Hollywood remake, fourteen years later.