L'amore secondo Isabelle

"You don't have to go looking for love when it's where you come from" - Werner Erhard

Isabelle (Juliet Binoche, "Ghost in the Shell"), a divorced fiftyish artist, is attractive, urbane, and highly intelligent but her relationships seem to have a built-in mechanism for self destruction. The men in Isabelle's life offer her little except temporary physical pleasure and are pretty much ciphers (and not very nice ones at that). Loosely based on Roland Barthes' book "A Lover's Discourse: Fragments" with a screenplay by Christine Angot, Claire Denis' sophisticated comedy/drama Let the Sunshine In (Un beau soleil intérieur) is lighter fare than normal for Denis, but it has its probing, self-reflective moments and Juliet Binoche, as usual, is an appealing screen presence.

Like many of us, Isabelle wants to find someone who fits her pictures but, as most of us discover sooner or later, life often does not fit our pictures. All of Isabelle's relationships start out to be very promising but eventually the decisions she makes about her partners seem to get in the way of her satisfaction. Whatever she thinks that she is looking for, she does not find it with either banker Vincent (Xavier Beauvois, "Django"), actor (Nicolas Duvauchelle, "Wedding Unplanned"), ex-husband Francois (Laurent Gréville, "A Perfect Man"), or any other potential beau for that matter. The film begins with Isabelle in bed with the married, pretentious Vincent. Things are looking a-ok until she decides that he is taking too long to climax, a fact she decides reflects badly on her.

Vincent asks her whether she has had more success with other lovers, but her response is a convincing slap in the face. She is with him when he bullies a bartender but she does not react. The next time he visits her in her apartment, however, she calls him an unrepeatable name, then tells him to leave and not come back. Instead, she hooks up with a young actor (Duvauchelle), also married, though with a better disposition. When she invites him in for a drink, they play endless games about whether he should stay or leave. When he decides to stay, they go through the motions together but by the next morning he concludes that things were better before they had sex and wishes that it had not happened.

The next one up is François (Gréville), Isabelle's ex-husband, who is concerned about their ten-year-old daughter after she tells him that her mother cries every night. This is not good news for her to hear and she uses it as a reason to end any chance for reconciliation. There are several more suitors that follow but Isabelle always finds something about them that she dislikes. She meets Sylvain (Paul Blain, "All is Forgiven") at a club who literally carries her away with pleasure as they dance to Etta James' beautiful "At Last." Unfortunately, Fabrice (Bruno Podalydès, "Chocolat"), an art gallery owner, convinces her that Sylvain is wrong for her because he is not a good fit for her circle. This provides cover for her to end yet another relationship, one that had barely even begun. There is not much left for her of course but to go to a clairvoyant (Gerard Depardieu, "You Only Live Once"), but his banter provides little certainty that she will find "the one." There are times in Let the Sunshine In when Isabelle has moments of happiness and optimism, but she can also come across as needy and, at times, almost desperate. Through the magic of Binoche's performance, Isabelle is a sympathetic figure and one that we root for. Her quest, however, has a touch of game playing to it and it seems that, for Isabelle, it may not be whether you win or lose but how you play the game.

I hadn't seen a preview or even read a precis before going, but I generally like French movies, so I went. I didn't know what to make of it -- at the beginning I thought it was a drama, but then the scenes got absurdly exaggerated, and I decided it must be a comedy that the language barrier kept me from finding funny. So I was surprised to learn from the reviews here that it was not a comedy! I still don't know what to make of it. So, my advice is, if you have to pay money to see this and you don't speak fluent French, don't bother (in my case, I have a theater membership that allows me pretty much unlimited movies, so I do tend to take chances).

... in its focus on unsatisfactory relationships - and it even has Depardieu in a pointless cameo role!

At one level, it's not too surprising that a well-regarded female artist of a certain age would have trouble finding a suitable partner following her divorce. However, her inability does seem at least somewhat self-inflicted, as she keeps latching on to married and otherwise unavailable men - some of whom are clearly complete arseholes. Indeed, there were so many of these I lost track of who was supposed to be "just a friend" and who was her current lover, and what might happen in her future.

Worth a look, but not Binoche's best, IMHO.

A rather one-note film about a frustrating character that I probably would have reviewed more harshly had it not starred the luminous Juliette Binoche.

Binoche plays a woman who's fallen into a repetitive cycle of starting up love affairs -- sometimes with the wrong guy, sometimes with someone who might be a right guy -- but then bailing on them because of her own inability to open herself up emotionally. And that's the movie. There's not much of a character arc to her -- the life events that have put herwhere she is have already happened when the movie starts, and she doesn't learn much of anything about herself or her own responsibility in being lonely and miserable that suggests anything is going to change. A generous interpretation of the ending might, I suppose, hint at future happiness, but I chose, cynic that I am, to interpret it instead as yet another desperate attempt made by Binoche's character to find love that requires no effort on her part. Apparently, she thinks she can just wait patiently and it will fall from the sky into her lap.

"Let the Sunshine In" isn't a boring film, but it's not an especially engaging one either. You will have to find Juliette Binoche herself interesting as an actress if you're going to enjoy this film, as it's virtually a one-woman show.

Grade: B

Audiences went into this French drama as if they were partaking in a romcom buffet at their local boulangerie, but unsurprisingly came out disappointed when they weren't given the usual Katherine Heigl American trash that pollutes the genre. This is not a traditional romantic comedy. I repeat, not a traditional romcom. It is a drama about love, layering themes of romance and philosophies on life through an almost schizophrenic perspective. And with that, Denis has produced a wonderfully intimate portrayal of modern love through her ornate methods of artistic direction. A woman, struggling to find love, becomes involved with multiple men in an attempt to find stability and a relationship.

On the surface, this resembles a vapid pretentious outlook on the morality of men and emotional instability of women. However if you inspect Denis' contemporary storytelling techniques, it's actually a personable venture of self-discovery. A woman acquiring the fragility and tenderness that love shares with its victims, both a curse and a blessing. Coming to terms with how delicate a relationship can be, with a persistence on why certain aspects "should not be rushed".

The various men she encounters all treat her differently. A rich banker uses her to cheat on his wife, an actor regrets sleeping with her on the first meet and her ex-boyfriend/husband is unable to rekindle their flame. The only man who she believes treats her appropriately is seemingly the complete opposite to her personality, with her colleagues subconsciously planting doubt in her mind.

Denis consistently hones in on her neurotic behaviour which, whilst provides a very subtle amount of humour, allows her to experience the pain of love. It does inadvertently force her character to be disconnected with the audience, and on occasion results in her having a low morality compass. Yet fortunately the drama is shrouded in humanity. Everything felt natural. What helped elevate this was Denis' direction. A ludicrous amount of one take scenes allow us to become involved in their lives. The most notable of these being an eight minute unedited scene to which she talks to a banker at a bar. It also showcases Binoche's fantastic performance as she switches between emotions almost instantly. One second she is happily in love, the next filling her mind with doubt.

The scenes of sexual nature however felt rather excessive, particularly the introductory scene, that detracted from Denis' classy artistry. It may have highlighted the sleazy behaviour of these characters, but contrasts with the delicate portrayal of love. A nice touch that I found noteworthy was the concluding conversation with Depardieu. Midway through, the credits start rolling to emphasise the distractions that romances can cause, and it's these sort of contemporary details that enhance the film's interpretation.

Denis is certainly crafting films that aren't particularly accessible to the typical audience, but that does not result in her films being just exercises in vapidity. There's an intricate amount of humanity that brings life to this unconventional "romcom" that really should not be blocking that elusive sunshine.