Down by Love

"Down by Love" is one of those movies where the one or two-line plot description on IMDB tells you everything that happens in the movie. It holds no surprises whatsoever.

In case you missed that description, the movie is about a "forbidden love affair" between a married warden and a new arrival at his prison, a sultry, enigmatic young woman played by "Blue is the Warmest Colour"'s Adele Exarchopolous.

Yes, you know where this is going right from the first frame: they're going to start having sex, the man will fall in love/become obsessed, he will take bigger risks to see the girl, he'll be found out.

The movie is not a romance, as it might have been, and nor is it an erotic thriller, as it also easily could have been. Therefore with this material we are left only with drama, which indicates the movie will have to play it straight, showing the love affair as a staid sequence of events with a conclusion it doesn't even pretend we can't see coming. It features some rather frank sex scenes, but eroticism is clearly not on the cards for such a serious movie, and these are nothing out of the ordinary for a French flick.

The only thing I didn't expect from "Down by Love" came after I had finished watching it. I went on IMDB to write this review, and I saw that the movie is based on a true story. I never would have guessed that: the completely rote plot developments seems to come out of an outline from "Screenwriting for Dummies". If it's really "based on a true story", the filmmakers needed to study that story more closely. They may have come across details that could have set it apart.

I will finish by saying that there was one example of this lack of truth that I found particularly objectionable, and that is the Adele Exarchopolous character. This characterisation is indeed the stuff of erotic thrillers or softcore porn. She is only present to arouse the warden. We see barely anything of her personality, but plenty of her body; the movie doesn't even explain why she's in jail in the first place! And yet this is based on a true story? Did they just skip the bits with her in it?

This is all the more obvious when one considers that the main actor really doesn't evince much sympathy, and nor does his character generate much interest. It's the female lead that gets us thinking, but she seems to be playing a male fantasy, rather than just inspiring one in the protagonist.

Perhaps the filmmakers were more sympathetic to the warden's story than they wanted us to know?

This movie really is just a bad clichée.

Mid aged prison warden (Guillaume Gallienne aged 44) falls for his much younger and very beautiful new female prisoner (Adèle Exarchopoulos aged 23).

The story line is all about his attraction for her. And it's extremely flat and boring. We don't know her objectives. Which could be made in an interesting manner, except it's not. And there is nothing extraordinarily interesting about this story, except that it is set in a prison.

The film is basically a creepy old man lusting after a beautiful young girl. Not exactly new story... There is no depht to it either, it really is as shallow as it sounds.

I gave seven for the absolutely mesmerizing cast. This couple formed by Guillaume Gallienne (Les garçons et Guillaume à table, Yves Saint Laurent), one of the most versatile and surprising French actors (he's also part of la Comedy Francaise theater company), always powerful in his creativity, and a very talented young actress,like Adele Exarchopoulos (La vie d'Adele) who can explode with emotions, seemed odd on paper but it works, like all the other actors (notable mention to the wonderful Stephanie Cleau). Fortunately, I must say, because the director Pierre Godeau, doesn't seem able to cope properly with the sensitive matter in the plot. A love story in prison between the jail director and a prisoner, inspired to a real fact that happened to "Emma" , a young woman involved in France, in the vicious kidnapping and homicide of a young Jewish man by a street gang. None of the criminal case is present in the movie. Godeau sublimates the characters in the world apart of the prison, which can be cool, but he hasn't a real direction. Here everything is left in mid-air, or reduced to simplistic answers. The actors nonetheless make the movie compelling.

This is no masterpiece, as I've noted with a rating of 4. Exarchopoulos is a limited actress, and she's in practically every scene. Gallienne is a more than capable actor, but his part falls into blandness most of the time. The supporting cast do their best with a limited script. It was nice to see Marie Riviere, star of several Rohmer films, as the girl's mother. The story of a decent man falling for a trashy girl is hardly new; it's the plot of one of the greatest operas, Carmen. At least in that work, the audience is not required to guess at the motivations of the two leads.

I confess, I was already in love with Adéle Exarchopolus as a result of her brilliant performance in Blue is the Warmest Color. Down By Love is based on a true story deftly told by Pierre Godeau. The director never reveals the reason that Anna (Exarchopolous) is in prison and concentrates on the complex relationship between Anna and the prison director Jean. Jean is married with a loving wife and a wonderful daughter. Jean's wife, Stéphanie exhibits amazing tolerance and love as she becomes aware of the unfolding relationship between Jean and Anna. Anna is played perfectly by Exarchopolus capitalizing on her natural but sultry demeanor. Not only is Exarchoplous easy on the eye but she is an accomplished actor who portrays these complex emotions flawlessly. The end, as in many French films, is left open ... as an eternal romantic I am allowed to create the ending I really desire in my mind. Well worth watching.