Petits désordres amoureux (1998) - film review

On a Parisian pavement café, a young intellectual, Alain, meets a stranger, Sophie, and proceeds to tell her a most peculiar love story.  It involves his best friend and colleague, Lionel, who has a reputation as the office Don Juan.  As a bet, Lionel agrees to seduce a woman chosen at random by Alain, on condition that he does not make love to her.  Lionel is confident of winning the bet, but the woman he has to seduce, Claire, turns out to be something of a raving nymphomaniac, a married woman who is more interested in guilt-free sex than emotional involvement.  When finally the two do manage to get into bed, Lionel makes an astonishing admission.  He is incapable of making love…

Olivier Péray makes an impressive directorial debut with this original, witty and rather poignant romantic comedy.   The film happily sets out to break a few conventions – first in its ingenious narrative construction and then in its plot, which boldly reverses the roles of a man and a woman in a tempestuous romantic liaison.   Traditionally, it’s the woman who submits to male dominance, usually after a considerable amount of harrowing psychological arm-wrestling masquerading as foreplay.  Here, it’s the woman who has the upper hand, and boy does she intend to use it.  Far from being contrived, the film feels remarkably truthful and downright funny in some places (the scene where the smouldering Claire comes onto Lionel with the subtlety of a juggernaut mowing down a cyclist is utterly hilarious).  The film may not be perfect – there are noticeable flaws in the scripting, acting and direction – but it has a refreshing lightness of touch which has been largely missing from French cinema since the early 1970s.  In his sensitive portrayal of a young man struggling (and apparently failing) to engage his sexual drive, Bruno Putzulu is sympathetic and convincing, revealing an actor with great talent, screen presence and charm.

© James Travers 2007

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