Édouard et Caroline (1951)
Directed by Jacques Becker

Film Review

For Édouard et Caroline director Jacques Becker takes his inspiration from the American romantic comedies of the 1940s that were proving to be highly popular in France after the war.  Becker may not quite have the Lubitsch touch but his first attempt at a rom-com is an enjoyable diversion from his more serious and more widely appreciated dramas.  Made immediately before his best known film, Casque d'or (1952), Édouard et Caroline could hardly be more different in tone and yet it possesses a similarly delicate poignancy beneath its frivolous surface and unashamed mockery of the bourgeois milieu.

As in his earlier Antoine et Antoinette (1947), Becker draws on his own experiences to paint an authentic portrait of a young couple struggling to hold together their crumbling relationship.  The changing moral climate and relaxation of censorship rules allowed Becker to be more honest about what goes on within the four walls of a young couple's apartment, and so the bouts of bickering and attempts to patch things up all carry an obvious erotic charge.  The critics on the Cahiers du cinéma were quick to praise the film for its modernity and were clearly influenced by it when they started making films towards the end of the decade.  François Truffaut's Antoine et Colette (1962) and Jean-Luc Godard's Le Mépris (1963) both have an obvious connection with Édouard et Caroline.

As the lead characters, Daniel Gélin and Anne Vernon perfectly incarnate the thoroughly modern couple, a romantic pairing that Becker would re-employ (somewhat less successfully) on a later comedy, Rue de l'estrapade (1953).  Gélin and Vernon were both very much stars of the moment, symbols of a liberated youth that bristled with optimism, unaffected by the privations their parents had known in previous decades.  Both actors bring a dangerous edge of modernity to their performances that is striking for a French film of this time.  Throughout most of the first third of the film, Gélin walks around in an unbuttoned shirt and underpants as if totally oblivious to the fact.  Later, Vernon sends out some pretty unmistakable signals that she is ready to be seduced.  Such overt sexuality would have been unthinkable just a few years previously and would only became widespread a decade later.  Édouard et Caroline is too easily dismissed as one of Becker's lesser works, but it is one of the director's most forward-looking and authentic films, lifting the lid on conjugal life and revealing it to be anything but a bed of roses.

Film Synopsis

Édouard and Caroline are a young couple who believe they have found lasting happiness, even though they come from very different milieus.  Édouard's origins may be in a humble working class background but he is a gifted musician and knows he has the talent to become a world-class concert pianist.  Caroline is unconcerned by her partner's modest roots and bitterly resents being shunned by her bourgeois family, who are unlikely to forgive her for marrying so far beneath her on the social ladder.  Then comes the evening that provides Caroline with an opportunity to patch things up with her relatives whilst allowing Édouard to raise his profile and maybe obtain the contacts he desperately needs to get himself started in his career.

At a lavish party organised by Caroline's rich uncle, Édouard has been invited to give a piano recital.  Who knows where this could lead? Offers of work may come flooding in!  Unfortunately, the evening gets off to a bad start when Édouard loses his waistcoat and Caroline realises that the expensive dress she was planning to wear doesn't suit her at all.  These inconsequential hitches soon become magnified tenfold and in no time the husband and wife end up arguing over nothing.  His marriage now looking as if it is in ruins, Édouard leaves for the party and does as is required of him, playing at the piano to the delight of the other guests.  He at least has made a good impression.

But then Caroline shows up, in the company of another man - her seductive cousin Alain.  If Caroline had wanted to provoke a scene in public she could not have chosen a more effective way of doing so.  Aware that Alain has had amorous designs on his wife for some time, Édouard allows his hackles to rise and gets into another fierce dispute with Caroline.  Far from being a complete disaster, the evening ends with Édouard walking away with a lucrative contract.  The question is: can he and Caroline make things up or is their separation now inevitable...?