The Films of 2020

[diamonds]

While I thought the film went off the rails in the back half (I know France has a long history of films about young women throwing themselves at old men, but I don’t find it innovative to do that same tired narrative with an older woman instead), Les amours d’Anaïs also has a great comic nude scene early on with Demoustier trying and failing to turn off a faulty smoke detector in the middle of a sexual encounter. I’m okay with this trend

Though it does not feature Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi slowly swaying to "Bette Davis Eyes" (no small pleasure), À trois, on y va from 2015 is the stronger, sweeter film featuring Demoustier as the vertex in a love triangle with a preexisting couple. She's a talented comedienne for sure, looking forward to checking out La pièce rapportée.

[domino harvey]

Haven't seen A trois, on y va yet but saw the director's latest, Cher Lea, a day in the life film which also stars Demoustier, and man, can we get a moratorium on unappealing middle aged dicks being irresistible to women yet or what? I don't care that Demoustier has broken up with the dick, that still means she was into him beforehand (and dude still sleeps with her one last time, of course). There's a moment in this movie where Gregory Montel literally stalks his ex Demoustier so hard that he breaks into her house while she's with another man to spy harder on her and it's hard to think of a stupider screenplay contrivance. However, I loved one of the supporting characters, a softspoken and sweet bearded bartender who gradually becomes friends with the main character over the day. All I could think of was how much I'd have rather spent the movie with him as the primary focus instead of this dickbag

The film does have one decent punchline related to the titular love letter Montel spends the whole movie writing

SpoilerShow

Where the bartender thinks it's so beautiful that he photocopies it in secret, then asks a female co-worker what she thought and she's like "Yeah, I read it, it wasn't that good" -- we can follow her instead too!