Je crois que je l’aime (2007) - film review

Lucas is 43, a successful businessman who is used to being in control and getting what he wants.  He hasn’t yet come to terms with his wife leaving him, so he his is far from ready to start another relationship.  Then he meets Elsa, an attractive young artist who has been commissioned to create a floor fresco for his company headquarters.  Lucas is instantly drawn to her but cannot understand why she is still a single woman.  Surely there must be something wrong with her?  To get the answers he needs, Lucas assigns his company’s private detective, Roland Christin, to look into Elsa’s private life...

Je crois que je l’aime may initially appear a little inconsequential when compared with director Pierre Jolivet’s previous films.  But, as the film develops, as we get to know the protagonists and glimpse the painful truths behind their eccentricities, it becomes apparent that it is far from being just another frivolous little rom-com.  Rather, it is actually quite an incisive film, a sensitively drawn portrayal of a middle-aged man and woman discovering how to fall in love again, having grown jaded and slightly rusty in the seduction department.  Jolivet’s previous comedies had predominantly been concerned with social injustices in modern day France.  Je crois que je l’aime is his first attempt at a romantic comedy, in the classic American tradition, and it is surprisingly effective, easily one of the director’s most enjoyable films to date.

Can it really be almost twenty years since Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Bonnaire last appeared together in a film?   They were last seen together in Claude Sautet’s Quelques jours avec moi (1988), and here they are, 19 years later, looking barely a day older.  Jolivet could hardly have hoped for a more talented pair of actors to headline his first rom-com - Lindon once again superb as the insecure, slightly grouchy romantic, Bonnaire delectable as the temperamental artist with neurotic tendencies.  Whilst both actors are saddled with characters that are the most egregious stereotypes, they succeed in making them real and likeable, and their on-screen rapport is extraordinary, arguably the best comedy romantic double act since Spencer Tracey and Katharine Hepburn.

And there is no shortage of talent in the supporting cast.  François Berléand (who had a minor role in Jolivet’s debut film Strictement personnel back in 1985) is magnificent as the company stooge who is gainfully employed by his boss to spy on his prospective girlfriend, and makes the most of some of the film’s funniest scenes.  Kad Merad likewise gives great value as Lindon’s down-to-earth buddy, helping to make Lindon’s character more human and sympathetic than he might have been (Merad has such a likeable persona that we instantly like anyone he associates with).   Brian Bigg (a former sumo wrestling champion) provides the film with its most surreal moment, and you can’t help wishing that Jolivet had made more use of his character - a heavyweight performance in just about every sense of the term.

Je crois que je l’aime is probably not Pierre Jolivet’s most profond or innovative film.  The director doesn’t attempt to stir our consciences as he does (perhaps a little too zealously) in his social comedies, and some will doubtless criticise him for adhering to the American rom-com formula a little to faithfully.  Yet, of all his comedies, this is the one that is most effortlessly entertaining, thanks mainly to the felicitous, and totally inspired, pairing of Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Bonnaire.

© filmsdefrance.com 2012

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