Toi et moi

What a wonderful little movie! I would definitely consider this a chick flick, but it transcends in its writing and humor. I saw this movie last night and still can't get it out of my head. At times the dialogue was so truthful and heartfelt that I cried. The movie juxtaposes real-life relationships with those of fiction and shows us how and why we sometimes get confused. I found one of the main characters, Lena, absolutely believable. Its not often that you can look at an actress and think that maybe you went to school with her or you just saw her get off an elevator where you work. This affect of having a real-looking actress added a necessary verisimilitude to the story, it's easy to see yourself in her shoes. At one point, the characters talk about the inspiration to love as being terribly important. Well, after seeing this film I felt the inspiration indeed.

What is it about French films? It seems that every French film I have seen grabs me immediately and keeps my attention throughout the entire movie. There is some magical thing that the French do in their films and I'm at a loss to understand what it is, but this movie does exactly the same thing. It truly is magic. The story is slight and a bit silly but the movie is so romantic and the cast so perfect who cares? I've always been in love with French women who I think are the sexiest on the planet and found French men to be creepy. But not here. The male leads are outstanding and keep up with the women very easily. But let's face it French films are known for their fantastic women and this film continues that idea delightfully. But the two men the two female leads end up with definitely keep your heart pumping and when love wins out in the end there isn't a dry eye in the house.

The movie is based on an usual triangle or maybe an unusual polygon if the male characters are included in the count. It is a straightforward telling of what happens in the life of two sisters in their late twenties more or less except... and the except is that along with real life, we see the fantasied versions of events as the older sister, a romance writer, imagines them. The use of a stage set background for the fantasies sets them apart from the real events in the sisters' lives.

Although technically, the movie is very straightforward, the use of music -- the younger sister is a cellist -- heightens almost every scene. A male violin soloist becomes part of the younger sister's real and imagined life (her fantasies are not made visible) and in fact knowing him changes her life in a way she doesn't expect. I keep thinking about the paradoxical but plausible view of her situation. Maybe the older sister's destiny is less plausible but, hey, the movie is billed as a comedy.