Personne ne m'aime (1994)
Directed by Marion Vernoux

Film Review

Director Marion Vernoux's debut feature is a somewhat muddled affair with various story strands involving several women with romantic problems somewhat clumsily thrown together without much thought as to whether the end result will make any sense. Had Personne ne m'aime concentrated on its central narrative involving a middle-aged woman coping with rejection whilst in the midst of a mid-life crisis it might have made an adequate comedy-drama. Rather than opt for this sensible course, Vernoux bizarrely throws in a subplot involving a teenager which is told out of sequence through flashbacks in a way that makes things needlessly complicated. Two prominent divas of the French New Wave - Bernadette Lafont and Bulle Ogier - are the film's main attraction, although both actresses are ill-served by a fairly mundane script that is lacking in charm and character depth. Another hero of la Nouvelle Vague, Jean-Pierre Léaud, is parachuted in for our amusement, but his unsympathetic character is sadly peripheral to the film and is hastily air-brushed out of vision to make way for lesser talents Michèle Laroque, Lio and Maaïke Jansen. It's not the most auspicious start to a directing career but Vernoux would more than make up for this false start with her subsequent films, Love, etc. (1996) and Rien à faire (1999).

Film Synopsis

One evening, 40-something Parisian Annie gets into a violent argument with her lover and ends up being thrown out into the street.  She rules out the option of asking her daughter Marie to help her, as she turned her back on her some years ago and they have scarcely been on speaking terms since.  Annie's first port of call is Lucien, a former boyfriend, but he refuses to offer her any support in this hour of need as she no longer means anything to him.  With no one else to turn to, Annie calls on her sister Françoise, a married woman who is enjoying a new lease of life after her children left home.

It so happens that, at this present moment, Françoise's husband Paul is away from home, ostensibly attending a conference in Cambrai.  Suspecting that Paul may be cheating on his wife, Annie convinces her sister that they should head for Cambrai with the expectation of catching the unfaithful husband in flagrante delicto.  On the long journey northwards, the sisters hook up with an odd trio comprising hotel manageress Cricri, cleaning lady Dizou and a little girl named Lili who can't bear the prospect of her father re-marrying...