Juste une question d'amour

It was interesting to read the stats that 6.3 million viewers saw this film when first aired in prime time on French public network. Shown on prime time, the public and critical response was overwhelmingly enthusiastic.

Well, I concur.

This is a most meticulously produced film that far transcends the television medium. Christian Faure's direction is excellent and the leading actors, Cyrille Thouvenin and Stephan Guerin-Tille, are superb.

I have no negative criticism of this work, and only hope it will have the widest possible showing in regular movie houses. Too good to let lie unseen, it took five years from its making in 2000 to be released on DVD. Hopefully, this is only the beginning. Good work can't be kept a secret, and this is certainly one of the best-ever made-for-TV films.

Being American, it is difficult watching subtitled foreign films. We have such a genre of films in this country as it is. It also makes someone stop multitasking to sit and read the script. It was a pleasure and an uplifting experience watching this movie. It is SO difficult coming to terms with being gay and seeing "sterityped" films with gays on drugs, whoring around, and eventually dying of AIDS. This is one of the few films that positively deals with love between two men and the difficulties that truly must be overcome. True love will make the most jaded, closeted gay person throw all cares and insecurities to the wind. I mean, whose life is it anyway??? What an uplift!! Please watch this movie!!

Excellent!

Very impressive, well done. All the actors, actresses were very good at doing their parts.

There is one mistake that I found. I thought that whoever did the make up did an excellent job, especially on Laurent's mother Jeanne. She was so radiant when she was visiting her son, then she became so old after she learned that her son is gay. So after I finished watching the show, (I am surprised that it is not a movie.) I watched that chapter again. To my surprise, her hair was up when she was standing at the door. Then later on, when she was relaxed in the room, all of sudden, her hair was down again.

Everyone looks so natural, it doesn't seem as if they were acting. It is as if they were really people with real problems. I also like Cedric's mother - Emma, she reminds of someone that I know, very elegant.

This story is well written, it is not predictable as you watch from the beginning. And it seems that it could be just anyone's problem, whether it happened in France or in the US. There will always be parents like them, and sons like those two. And that is what is so great about this TV show, real life like story. well done!

I cannot tell you, with any great insight, the lessons to be learned with this film or the messages it may send to those who do not (choose not to) 'understand' homosexuality. That's not to say they are not there, or that this film fails to make those connections because it does. It speaks for those mistreated, it makes clear the tragedies that come with this prejudice, and does so - in my opinion - without being preachy, or pointing angry fingers.

For me, it is simply a story of love. A love that proves to be so special, that the two main characters - Cedric and Laurent - are willing to make crucial decisions, and changes in their lives for its survival. It is these two men; with their boyish behaviors - the joking, teasing and name calling - and the easy way they are together, that make this film. Superbly acted, this is a story that you can believe in.

It's got to be said that these 2 French actors (Thouvenin and Guerin-Tillie) have Chemistry. That's spelled with a capital "C"...(and, well, you just gotta make the "H", the "E", the "M" and all the rest of 'em, capital letters, too). Plus, as actors, these guys are not afraid to express their feelings by making that extra gesture of a passing touch or hand-on-arm (how often we don't see this from our American actors). There's a very striking feeling projected by this film that really makes you have to wonder: if these guys weren't already in love prior to filming, then surely mustn't they have become so during the process.......at least that's what their performances so vividly project to the audience. It's what one is left with after watching this film: THAT WAS REALLY LOVE! What greater mark of success could be asked for, or achieved, in setting a gay romance on film?

One other important point on their performances: while the actors portraying Laurent and Cedric can be so explosive in their expressiveness toward each other, they also make themselves such fun to be with (as a viewer you feel as if you're right there, actually sharing their fun, excitement and joy in discovering sex and love with each other). Make note of these things as you watch, and see if the old pulse-rate doesn't go up on more than one occasion......and your "chuckle-bone" will get a good workout as well. What it all boils down to is simply that seeing and experiencing their strongly expressed feelings for each other is worth a 1000 times the price of admission.

As a little bit of a postscript, this reviewer just has to add--Rarely has a movie title been more fitting and meaningful than this one's, especially as it is explained and demonstrated in the heartrending denouement which takes place between father and son in the final moments of the film. "Really," it tells us, "after everything else has come, been considered, and gone, all that's left and important is......just a question of love!"

As a final postscript--To say that this French director's work is award worthy, is the grossest of understatements.

SCENES TO WATCH OUT FOR:

--Don't miss this couple's first one-on-one in the agricultural lab which is to be their joint workplace: It's a first-meeting-and-feeling-each-other-out scene in which sparks fly---the tension between them fairly crackles.

--And one should definitely note: This pair's first post-coital scene is so full of satisfaction and obvious feelings for one another that those emotions practically jump off the screen. It's only topped, moments later, during a scene in which "Mom" walks in on the pair, unannounced----it's beyond priceless.

--Even more telling is the "water-fight" scene: You've never seen such fun and joy over being together expressed by a gay couple in any previous movie. No wonder this scene leads to the one which it does.

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