Charlotte et Véronique, ou Tous les garçons s'appellent Patrick

A simple story of two longtime girl friends and room mates who unknown to each other each meet the same young man in a park on the same day. He uses almost the same pick up line with each woman and spends about 40 minutes at a café wooing each of them. Both women are smitten and both agree to meet him for dinner on one of the following evenings. They are surprised when comparing notes that they both met a Patrick, but then the next day are together when by chance they see him use the same moves on another girl near the park. Nice acting by the women, and classic Rohmer attention to details of the heart.

Charlotte and Veronique are flatmates. One day they both go out separately and take lunch alone by the same park. Charlotte is approached and chatted up by a guy called Patrick and they agree to meet the next day. Later, Veronique is also approached by the same man and chatted up. When they get home they talk about their days and are amused to find that they both met men called Patrick on the same day – but their respective beaus seem so very different they conclude that that must be the only connection.

Godard's first short film set in Paris is also memorable for being the only time thus far that he has directed a film from someone else's script. The film is essentially a slight comedy about two women who meet the same guy without realising it and then go to meet each other's 'Patrick'. As a narrative it isn't amazing but it is enjoyable in its delivery if not its final substance. The script is well observed and is fun to watch as the two women are chatted up in an amusing and natural fashion. It may not end as well as I would have liked or have left me with any lasting impression but I enjoyed it while it was on and will come back to it at some point to rewatch it.

The cast do very well to deliver the dialogue as if they were really these characters. Collette and Berger are good when separate and it is only when they share the screen in their flat that they come off rather flat and not as natural as they were alone. However I have never lived in a girl flat so maybe the giggling is how they are – but they seemed realer when resisting being chatted up (which says more about my contact with women perhaps!?). Brialy is good value and plays his character(s) well throughout the film.

Overall this is an interesting film for several reasons but it is also quite an enjoyable one. The script is natural even if it hasn't got the strongest of narratives or best of conclusions and the cast do well to deliver it in a manner that is believable and natural making Godard's short worth seeing.

Considering what I read about this little short film, the first directed by Jean-Luc Godard and one of the first, if not the first, scribed by Eric Rohmer, I thought this was just going to be a stupid, amateurish piece of fluff. As it turns out, Charlotte and Veronique or All the Boys Are Called Patrick is like a small little quasi-template for the stylistic and romantic attitudes of the French New Wave via Cashiers du Cinema. It's naturally un-polished and a little too quick to leave as lasting an impact as some of the other films Godard and Rohmer would make, but it also features some of their best qualities on display with the energy and liveliness of rebel filmmakers squarely in their youth. For one thing, the criticism of film at the time is slipped in well enough for any film geek to savor- like the newspaper headline one reads at a table that says "French cinema is dying under the weight of false legends"- which includes some minor hints of the convention-breaking camera angles (who says we need to see a person talking to one in a over-the-shoulder, or head on, angle anyway).

And for me, unlike another commenter on this page, I didn't think it was necessarily more Rohmer than Godard. The sense of rapid-fire ease in getting realistic dialog regarding those of the opposite sex is there, to be sure, but there's a sense of rhythm that comes out in the dialog that wouldn't be found right away in Rohmer; actually, if anything, the whole rapport between Patrick with the two girls he courts reminded me of the pushy yet "cool" way that Belmondo had about him in Breathless. And the street photography out in Paris shows Godard being already unequivocal in his mastery of capturing the outside world in a unique style- that too is sort of a stylistic template for the Nouvelle Vague. And while it ends on a fairly obvious note- what Patrick really is after all the build-up of Charlotte and Veronique talking about 'their' Patrick- it nevertheless delivers on bringing some light and breezy times by way of hip filmmakers testing their chops on scripting the basics with character and getting down what it is to make the outside world into a form of poetry.

All the Boys Are Called Patrick (1959)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Simple twenty-minute short from Godard about two female friends who meet the same guy on the same day but don't know that the dates they've set up for the next day is with that same man. This is a pretty good little film that moves along very quickly and contains some good dialogue and performances. I was really impressed with the two women in the film played by Anne Collette and Nicole Berger. Both women turn in strong performances and best of all is that they make both characters very memorable. Jean-Claude Brialy also does a fine job in his role. I really don't think there's anything too overly special about the film and it really doesn't even look or feel like the work of Godard but for what it is the film is worth viewing.

Though Eric Rohmer is the mind behind the writing, bringing back Veronique, character from an earlier short film with the same actress, Monsieur Godard is the director of this, and strangely enough it seems a very suitable work for him. Not much in style (Nouvelle Vague is just giving its first glances, though it's obsession with American cinema is there, represented by a James Dean poster) but mostly the view he gives to the characters, their expressions and above the attitude. First steps of a movement that was about to shake the world of cinema, commendable because of this, but let's just say Truffaut provided best with his "Les Mistons", a year earlier. He had more to share. Godard doesn't make it bad, just proves to be a little tiring, misogynist and lacking in humor. But is it funny as it looks when you hear about the plot? Not really.

In "All The Boys Are Called Patrick", friends for life Charlotte and Veronique (Anne Collette and Nicole Berger, respectively) meet the perfect garçon of their lives, an annoying yet irresistible guy named Patrick (Jean-Claude Brialy). They met him on the same day, different times and under different circumstances (but not so different since it all revolved around him presenting himself to them by interrupting what they're doing so he can ask random stuff), and when they share their stories to each other is when they reach the movie's title. But they also marked a date with him for the same night, time to meet up when...Surprises I don't wanna share.

It happens in life, though not in such a light and amusing way, it tends to get real worse. And my problem with the movie was that it seem to force us to have patience through the whole thing, enduring with this guy's attitudes towards the girls, his unstoppable desire to win both girls at all costs. That ruthless and ignorant entitlement most men have to force themselves and their ideas into women, thinking they're the best thing for women who don't want anything with such types. In a way, it's almost as if "rape culture" was taken lightly here. Not that anything sexual ever happens in the movie, but that's the kind of attitude taken to extremes that constitute in violence, abuse or death. And this still happens today. Making fun of a situation involving girls who can't find ways to reject a man they don't want to be around, creating this notion that the female characters are playing hard to get and deep down they want this "charming" man, it's just preposterous. Not a single smile was shared. Except when Brialy's attempts were viewed as simplistic, the early stages of "conquering" - like when he meets Charlotte and he tries to guess what book she's reading, and his clumsiness is so ridiculous that he falls from a chair.

The approval I'm giving to this short film goes due to its presentation style, Godard might have learned a lot while making this film and that's one of the reasons why he's the acclaimed director he is; and the ending was simply one of the greatest I've ever seen and made the whole worth watching. You go, girls! 10/10