Les jeunes amants

I'm not French, but thank's God I'm also not an American who has to watch the boring love stories produced by Hollywood, where for years the screenwriters have not been able to come up with a unique script and have gone back to making insulting remakes of European films. This wonderful and heart-pounding French made film was written in collaboration with the French Icelandic screenwriter SOLVEIG ANSPACH, who passed away from breast cancer (ringing?) in 2015. At the end of the film, the subtitles honor her memory. And now that everything has been said about the background, it is definitely a gem. Delicate direction in close-up to catch the smallest expressions of the actors who all but all, and not only the main ones, play the characters magnificent. The soundtrack, some will say that it helps the tears to flow is perfect. And for those skeptics who wonder if such an impossible love is possible between a 45 year old man and a 71 year old woman then yes. Look around you, maybe it's rare, but it exists. Maybe some of them are the rich old woman's pursuit of money, but some of them are pure love, sometimes tragic like in this movie.

A different love affair, very well done. Why is it that we unthinking accept older men with much younger women, but jib at the reverse? Fanny Ardant might well change some minds - this was unquestionably a great role for her. Fortunately the rest of the cast are up to her standard. Some humour, some pathos, and a story line that knows where it's going, though perhaps falters a little at the end (a couple of times I thought, is this the closing shot? When it wasn't)

Well filmed in a variety of locations - though I doubt the Kinsale tourist bureau will be promoting this film! Most attractive and appropriate music, too.

These two look gorgeous for their ages, but I didn't feel the spark, the chemistry in the beginning, before getting physical. I didn't get why he became obsessed with her all of a sudden. And suddenly she became ga-ga over him as well. I honestly didn't see it. Just as much as I couldn't understand why he just couldn't respect her wishes, or understand her, as it was obvious why she didn't want him to witness all that. And why she had to sacrifice her dignity for him.

I guess puppy love can happen at any age to some people. There were no deep conversations, no meaningful, life-altering moments to lead up to this, it actually looks like a basic coup de foudre, maybe of the slow-burn variety. But I still don't see it. Of course seeing Fanny Ardant and Melvil Poupaud you would buy almost anything, including this. They work their butts off to sell it.

Strangely though it is an easy watch, I was quite captivated, despite rationalizing a lot in my head.