Amour et confusions (1997) - film review

Dan, a thirty-something divorcee, makes a living designing women’s underwear.  Sarah is an ambitious businesswoman who has sacrificed everything for her career.  They meet, spend the night together, and then lose track of one another.  Confiding in his cousin, Simon, an ageing nymphomaniac, Dan becomes increasingly sure that Sarah is his ideal soul mate.  He can’t understand why she doesn’t contact him.  Sarah is equally sure that Dan is her ideal partner and is expecting him to telephone her – she left a message on a vase which Dan’s housecleaner broke before he had time to read it.  As time passes, each becomes increasingly neurotic about this latest emotional disappointment, so that when they are finally reunited the encounter is hardly a serene one…

Patrick Braoudé both directed and starred in this bubbly comedy of manners which, despite some really mad comic excesses, accurately portrays the complexities and neuroses of male-female relationships in the late 1990s.  The characterisation may be absurdly over the top but the talented four lead actors give great value for money, particularly Gérard Darmon who is hilarious as the lecherous Don Juan who has absolutely no control over his libido or his groping hands.  Fans of Kristin Scott Thomas will doubtless be delighted by her spirited comic performance in this film – not the kind of role she is best known for.  By contrast, Patrick Braoudé and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi add a more sombre tone and bring a touch of humanity in depicting what is a very real problem for contemporary society.  An unexpected treat is to see Jeanne Moreau hamming it up as some kind of New Age therapist.  In common with all of Braoudé’s films to date, not all of the comedy works, and some of it is positively juvenile.  However, where the film is funny, it is chest-achingly funny.

© James Travers 2004

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