{"id":2043,"date":"2019-07-23T18:58:44","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T18:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/?p=2043"},"modified":"2019-07-24T02:37:48","modified_gmt":"2019-07-24T02:37:48","slug":"a-faithful-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/2019\/07\/23\/a-faithful-man\/","title":{"rendered":"A Faithful Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

French comedy at its best.<\/p>\n

Marianne (Laetitia Casta, familiar to most probably as a former Victoria\u2019s Secret model) announces to Abel (Louis Garrel, known outside French cinema as one of the twins from Bertolucci\u2019s The Dreamers<\/em><\/span><\/a>) that she is pregnant and the baby is not his but that of his best friend Paul. Baby on the way, she has to marry Paul as soon as possible. With that, Abel has to move out \u2014 now \u2014 which he obediently does. The conversation is civil \u2014 smiles and nods, although later in the voiceover Abel calls it brutal.<\/p>\n

Eight years later. Paul dies in his sleep leaving Marianne with an eight year old son Joseph (Joseph Engel). The boy is intent to get his mother what he believes she wants and to make her happy. Fixated on crime and all-things-police, he\u2019s doing his own investigation, research, interviews, recordings, and such.<\/p>\n

Abel and Marianne are drawn to each other but Paul\u2019s younger sister \u00c8ve (Lily-Rose Depp, yes, Johnny\u2019s daughter) interferes. She happened to have had a crush on Abel since she was a little girl. Now, she\u2019s all grown up and feels that this is her chance to get Abel.<\/p>\n

To make things move, \u00c8ve approaches Marianne directly: Give me Abel or it is war. War for Abel. Not much drama or emotions during this talk either. Marianne smiles and walks away with no response. \u00c8ve calmly goes the other way.<\/p>\n

Marianne tells Abel about her conversation with \u00c8ve and suggests Abel goes for \u00c8ve to figure out what he really wants. The Aurore Dudevant approach: let them think that they decide. She is taking chances he\u2019d leave her for good but, at the same time, offers no guarantees she\u2019d be there for Abel if \u00c8ve doesn\u2019t work out.\u00a0Abel is reluctant. He has been thinking about Marianne all this years. And now here\u2019s this fresh temptation in the face of much younger \u00c8ve.<\/p>\n

And so Abel goes.<\/p>\n

This movie is one of those French concoctions about love, passion, and sex that has no nudity, sex, or drama in your face. The drama is delivered in a bland dialogue with a smile. Ridicule is presented as normal. It is not exactly a caricature but the movie is funny in absurd ways bringing back memories of Luis Bu\u00f1uel. It turns out, one of the co-script-writers wrote The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie <\/em><\/span><\/a>with Bu\u00f1uel.<\/em><\/p>\n

There\u2019s no fixation on pretty visuals here \u2014 uneven teeth, wrinkles, aging faces are not only ok but more attractive than perfections of youth. In place of a dialogue, a generous voiceover supports subtle brow lifts and lips pursing. And the music carries the movie so fine.\u00a0Chemistry between Casta and Garrel is amazing. No surprise \u2014 they are married in real life. Lily-Rose mimics are so on point\u00e8. And phenomenal young Joseph Engel delivers comedy with a straight face in the best traditions of French films bringing to memory Louis de Fun\u00e9s, Pierre Richard, and Belmondo.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

French comedy at its best. Marianne (Laetitia Casta, familiar to most probably as a former Victoria\u2019s Secret model) announces to Abel (Louis Garrel, known outside French cinema as one of the twins from Bertolucci\u2019s The Dreamers) that she is pregnant and the baby is not …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2043"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2053,"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043\/revisions\/2053"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}