This week on All-However-UnGoogleable Netflix Film Titles Theatre is French Lover, which is at the least named after a satirical deodorant product within the film. The person sporting mentioned deodorant, or at the least hawking it in commercials, is Omar Sy, the (principally) motion star the latest Shadow Pressure and large Netflix international smash Lupin, right here enjoying a Paris-based film star in a romantic comedy alongside Sara Giraudeau. It's a standard-issue opposites-attract film that may have simply sufficient attraction to virtually stir sufficient curiosity that we put down our telephones and take note of it. That's a low bar to clear, however that's Netflix for you most days.
The Gist: Abel Camara (Sy) is speaking proper at us. Ugh? Sure. However don't hand over but – the digicam pulls again after a bit to disclose he's taking pictures a corny-ass advert for French Lover. Not that Abel is joyful about this. He's a famous person movie actor of the favored selection, not the award-winning/thespian selection, and he'd completely reasonably be the latter than something, particularly a face in a industrial for a product you may get at any previous Walgreens. He's the topic of all of the tabloid slop – his relationships (he's a little bit of a ladykiller), his substance use (he's not an addict, opposite to trashy headlines), and all that.
Such overexposure is why he's delicate to any rando who is perhaps pointing a cellphone in his common path, e.g., Marion (Giraudeau), the waitress who's alleged to be bringing him a drink as he sits alone in a sales space. Perhaps she's taking a photograph, however perhaps she isn't, and she or he vehemently denies it as she argues with THE Abel Camara, which upsets her boss, who fires her instantly after she quits. “She's new and have to be on her interval,” the boss says in an apology to Abel. Yeesh. Abel feels unhealthy so he coerces her into letting him give her a experience house, after which he talks his method as much as her house, the place she lives alone along with her goliath canine and a pending divorce. She's not solely unimpressed together with his fame, she's reluctant to be associates with this man. However they smoke a joint, and dodge her ex, and kiss, and earlier than you already know it, he's crashing her little niece's celebration and entertaining a roomful of women whereas the adults stand to the facet, starstruck.
So that they strike up an unlikely affair – a barely mousy, no-nonsense usually unemployed girl, and a tall, ripped and good-looking movie star in a enterprise that's all nonsense. Working example, Abel's agent Camille's (Pascale Arbillot) makes an attempt to engineer a faux-girlfriend for him for PR functions; he not too long ago broke up with a modelesque actress, Lena (Cindy Bruna), and Camille's making an attempt to pair him with one in all her new, younger purchasers, who'll look beautiful in teensy attire alongside him at premieres and whatnot. In order that's a dumb subplot ripe for misunderstandings to doubtlessly undermine the honeymoon montage of Abel and Marion dancing, romping, snuggling and splashing within the tub collectively, all cute ‘n' shit. In the meantime, she offers along with her jerk ex and desires of proudly owning a meals truck, however inevitably the extra attention-grabbing movie star stuff takes precedent, like Abel's lastly being forged in a status movie more likely to earn him a flowery Cesar award (suppose Oscars, however French), but in addition means starring in a romance together with his ex because the lead. Oh noes. Might a nonsense struggle be on the horizon? The kind that may break them up, nonetheless briefly, contemplating the style this film falls into? Pas de spoilers!
What Motion pictures Will It Remind You Of?: Yep. Gender-switched Notting Hill. There's even the scene the place the famous person sits all the way down to dinner together with his girlfriend's gobsmacked household.
Efficiency Price Watching: Arbillot provides shocking dimension to what may've been a one-note, two-joke character – the enabling expertise agent – in two notable scenes, one-on-one interactions with Giraudeau and Sy, which can be the movie's best and earnest moments.
Memorable Dialogue: Marion tells her potential suitor one thing he in all probability hardly ever hears:
Abel: Can we be associates?
Marion. NO.
Intercourse and Pores and skin: Solely the mildest of PG-13 bed room smoochy-smoochy.
Our Take: French Lover exhibits little curiosity in subverting the norms of its style. So little, it comes near zero. Which leaves us considering the chemistry of its leads, Sy and Giraudeau acquitting themselves properly of among the script's cliches, and getting this factor over the end line – finally, because it's two hours lengthy – in a single piece. They're charming sufficient to attract us in and make us really feel reasonably invested of their happiness. These characters' feelings generally really feel like they've arrived through free in a single day transport from Amazon, however the forged provides them simply sufficient oomph to encourage us to care. However solely simply.
The film's stronger bits stretch the rom-com method sufficient to additional endear us – the screenplay acknowledges how Abel's outsized presence and public persona inevitably pushes his much less well-known associate into the margins, and Marion additionally isn't afraid to name him on his BS movie-star entitlement. A couple of scenes with Arbillot's supervisor character carry issues a bit nearer to Earth emotionally. And Giraudeau — who resembles a extra approachable, much less ethereal Dakota Johnson –doesn't have quite a bit to work with on the web page, but when her softspoken characterization of Marion wasn't at the least relatable (see additionally: Anne Hathaway in The Concept of You), the film would all however stop to operate.
After all, we've got to work by way of a number of stereotypical rom-com scenes: Marion feeling misplaced in a ridiculous gown at a premiere, Marion studying the feedback (“Do I actually appear to be a ‘depressed sparrow'?”) as Abel advises her to disregard them, Abel making an attempt to impress Marion by doing his personal stunts on a film set and getting kicked within the nards by a horse, and so forth. French Lover is perhaps extra memorable if it leaned a bit extra into spoofing the film enterprise (keep in mind how Julia Roberts' character performed an astronaut within the film inside Notting Hill? That Abel stars in a movie known as Alone in House appears like homage, or pastiche, or perhaps only a ripoff) and leaned a bit additional away from break-up-and-make-up familiarities, however alas. It's content material to fulfill expectations and be extra watchable than horrible within the course of. Right here's to small victories.
Our Name: Perhaps one of many smallest victories, to be sincere. However a victory nonetheless. STREAM IT with at-best modest expectations.
John Serba is a contract author and movie critic based mostly in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
