Embrassez qui vous voudrez (2002) - film review

After a stressful year, Elizabeth Lannier is looking forward to her holiday in Le Touquet.  When she learns that her best friend Véro will be staying in the same town, she suggests they spend their holiday together.  Véro agrees but must somehow keep from her friend the fact that, since her husband Jérôme lost his job, she is feeling the squeeze financially.  At the last minute Elizabeth learns that her husband cannot accompany her – he says he is too occupied with his work, but in reality he is having an affair with a transsexual.  In addition, her daughter, Emilie, has decided to take a holiday in the United States, with – unbeknown to her parents – one of her father’s employees, Kevin.  With a bed going spare, Elizabeth invites one of her friends, Julie, to stay with her, with her baby.   Julie is something of a nymphomaniac who always ends up with the wrong man.  It happens again.  Meanwhile, Elizabeth has made friends with Lulu, an attractive lawyer whose husband Jean-Pierre is convinced that she is cheating on him.  With the holiday in Le Touquet rapidly turning into a disaster, Elizabeth invites all of her friends to a garden party at her home.  If she is expecting everything to resolve itself nicely, she is in for a nasty surprise...

This magnificently orchestrated comedy of errors brings together some of the biggest names in French cinema and is a major achievement for its director, Michel Blanc, by far his best film to date.  With so many characters and plots, it would have been easy for this film to have ended up a convulted mess, but it hangs together remarkably well.  In fact, through a combination of good scripting, good editing and some great characterisation, it is actually surprisingly easy for the spectator to follow what is happening.  In this exemplary ensemble piece, Blanc manages to get the best out of his cast – which is headed by the sublime Charlotte Rampling – whilst also putting in a respectable performance himself.

The wealth of talent on display makes this a rich mosaic in which human relationships are skilfully dissected with sensitivity, acuity and a certain amount of justifiable brutality.  Whilst the film makes you laugh, it also makes you reflect on the injustice and absurdity of human existence.  None of the characters in the film seems capable of finding fulfilment in their love lifes, yet all are willing slaves to their unbridled sexuality.  The situations and characters may be a little over-the-top, but there is more than a grain of truth in what we see.   Essentially, Embrassez qui vous voudrez is a pretty damn honest reflection of life as we now live it.  We may have more opportunities and greater prosperity than previous generations, but if the result is a more fragmented, less coherent and less satisfying way of life, can we ever be happier?   The film’s French title is both provocative and ironic, reminding us how devalued romantic love has become in this fully liberated, live-for-the-present, throwaway society of ours.

© James Travers 2003

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