Girlfriend Charlotte (Laura Smet) and boyfriend Paul (Nicolas Duvauchelle) are in love; girlfriend gets sick, very sick. Female cousin Ninon (Marie Denarnaud) enters the picture by chance, offers support, and gradually becomes a complication. The French have done some of the harshest, most honest film depictions of serious illness, Patrice Chéreau's (also 2003) 'Mon frère' being the most striking recent example, though those who've cited Cyril Collard's self-starred 1992 autobiographical film (extraordinary achievement) about the wild life ('Les Nuits fauves') of a gay man with AIDS are right to do so: thinking of it reminds one how intensely, defiantly alive the dying can be, especially when they're young.
It's natural not to want to watch this, to make up excuses like that it's trying too hard to be important, that it's just too unfun. But if you stick with it you get a very honest, fresh, almost elegant treatment of its themes. What makes it work is that the three young actors, who are beautiful to look at (and that matters too) are excellent and give their all, without excess, but without holding back anything.
Do jealousy and libido survive not only life-threatening illness, but chemotherapy? The film asks us to believe that in someone as young and intense, as much in love and as willful and angry as Charlotte they do. Smet, daughter of Johnny Halliday and actress Nathalie Baye, is beyond good here. Duvauchelle, who, like Smet, has natural ease in front of the camera, a strong screen presence, and the restraint to use it naturally, is well cast because he has both stoicism and an edge of spoiled adolescence -- or is it simply sensuality -- the contradictory combination of the athlete.
The ménage-à-trois concept is dipped in an acid bath here. Under the threat of death and despair--and with the ambivalence of Charlotte, who offers Ninon to Paul as a palliative, out of kindness, and then hates herself and them for the result--the usual triangle is more dangerous and more complex than usual. The whole concept of fidelity is searingly reexamined, and the ménage is transformed, and reaches a resolution that's as peaceful as it is simple. The filmmakers, writers, director and actors share a willingness to go for broke with the taste to let events express themselves which, despite the simple, hand-held DV style, results in a style that's truly cinematic. A surprising success, within its parameters of first film and youthful acting. "Freely adapted" from the novel by Christian de Montella. Director Giannoli showed his skill earlier by winning the Golden Palm at Cannes for his 25-minute short, 'The Interview' (1998), starring Matthieu Amalric.
It's natural not to want to watch this, to make up excuses like that it's trying too hard to be important, that it's just too unfun. But if you stick with it you get a very honest, fresh, almost elegant treatment of its themes. What makes it work is that the three young actors, who are beautiful to look at (and that matters too) are excellent and give their all, without excess, but without holding back anything.
Do jealousy and libido survive not only life-threatening illness, but chemotherapy? The film asks us to believe that in someone as young and intense, as much in love and as willful and angry as Charlotte they do. Smet, daughter of Johnny Halliday and actress Nathalie Baye, is beyond good here. Duvauchelle, who, like Smet, has natural ease in front of the camera, a strong screen presence, and the restraint to use it naturally, is well cast because he has both stoicism and an edge of spoiled adolescence -- or is it simply sensuality -- the contradictory combination of the athlete.
The ménage-à-trois concept is dipped in an acid bath here. Under the threat of death and despair--and with the ambivalence of Charlotte, who offers Ninon to Paul as a palliative, out of kindness, and then hates herself and them for the result--the usual triangle is more dangerous and more complex than usual. The whole concept of fidelity is searingly reexamined, and the ménage is transformed, and reaches a resolution that's as peaceful as it is simple. The filmmakers, writers, director and actors share a willingness to go for broke with the taste to let events express themselves which, despite the simple, hand-held DV style, results in a style that's truly cinematic. A surprising success, within its parameters of first film and youthful acting. "Freely adapted" from the novel by Christian de Montella. Director Giannoli showed his skill earlier by winning the Golden Palm at Cannes for his 25-minute short, 'The Interview' (1998), starring Matthieu Amalric.