Garçon chiffon

I certainly have a problem with Nicolas Maury: be he straight ("les envoutés" ) or gay (this movie) ,his affected delivery gets on my nerves ;his hangdog look is more exasperating than moving ; it's just an opinion,and some (particularly the highbrow critics) find him sublime:there's no accounting for taste .

"Boys like us" also tells the sentimental problems of three gays but the results were always credible and the movie ,whilst showing respect for the audience , was accessible to anyone .

This one may make some take to their heels after 30 minutes because the scenes don't make any dramatic progression ;but fortunately , Natalie Baye appears as a mom who calls her boy "chiffon" (=rag) ,hence the title ;Baye could blow anyone off the screen but her part is underwritten,and she was never given a single chance to really shine ; she's not so over possessive a mother ,one has seen worse in this field. Theo Christine gives his director a run for his money in the scene by the pool , one of the rare ones in which the movie seems to go somewhere .On the other hand, Laura Calmy's hysterical fit of anger is absolutely unbearable :did she want to surpass Liz Taylor in "who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? Happily , she's got only one scene !

The movie is supposed to depict a gay man's jealousy ,but it's hardly obvious (his partner,a vet ,has an affair with another man,his mother is helped by a man who might take her from him ,but these scenes are few and far between) and it does not compare favorably with Chabrol's "l'enfer" .

This beautiful film has so many layers it is hard to know where to begin. First the acting which is superb without exception and I have to single out Nicolas Maury and Nathalie Baye. The story itself is of Maury struggling against the odds to regain his 'sanity' in a Paris that looks mentally out of control. The early scenes when he confronts his group of friends, and his all too sane lover are both tinged with humour and despair. His lover throws him out and Maury cannot find work as an actor, and this situation drives him home to his mother, played by Baye. Hard not to give away more spoilers, but I am resisting. I also felt while watching this film that we all need to recognise our loss of so-called traditional 'sanity' and that only then do we recognise the true worth of life. Two key scenes showed this; one with Maury and his mother towards the end where her true feelings towards her deceased husband are revealed, and the other with his now estranged veterinarian lover who struggles to save Maury's beloved dog's life. Rarely has such maturity been shown so vividly on screen, and Maury who was also director of the film shows every nuance possible of these troubled relationships. But nothing prepared me for the impact of the ending; for the beauty it showed in its hopeful rebirth of a continuing and possibly better life. I urge viewers to watch this masterpiece of film making and to wonder how it is that French film can also surprise us with its wisdom and its force of renewal. I left this cinematic experience feeling that it is best after all to live from day to day, and that is perhaps a thought that could save us all. A well deserved 10.

I knew practically nothing about Nicolas Maury's "Garçon chiffon" ("My Best Part" in English) when I started watching it. I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it's an effective study of a gay man's relationships, both with his mom and with his romantic partner; Maury has shown himself to be a good actor and director. On the other hand, it's a bit slow-paced. Not to the level of dullness like Terrence Malick's movies, but Maury could've at least made the characters more forceful.

In the end, the movie is worth seeing, if only once. I'll be interested in seeing more of Maury's movies, and I hope that they have similar plots to this one. It apparently was an official selection at the 2020 Cannes Film Festival but didn't get screened due to the coronavirus.

Not a great movie but not terrible.

The main character has no redeeming qualities whatsoever... He is so unattractive and annoying, I was amazed he'd got as far as he did in life... All in all: bad directing, bad acting, bad script. If I could give it less than 1 star I would.

It is a lovely bucket of stories. Seductive for the fresh acting of Nicholas Maury, for Nathalie Bayle - her mother reminds mothers of many of us -, for dark humor, for an adorable puppy and for the fair end.

A story about vulnerability, depression, jealousy, soulfull, illusions versus truth , relations and acceptance of reality, french in its essence , giving a good fist of portraits and analysis, delicate and ironic, precise in each part of message.

A story about honesty to yourself. Maybe about inner peace..