MY SEX LIFE (OR HOW TO GET INTO AN ARGUMENT) [COMMENT JE ME SUIS DISPUTE... (MA VIE SEXUELLE)](director/writer: Arnaud Desplechin; cinematographer: Éric Gautier; cast: Bob (Thibault de Montalembert), Frederic Rabier (Michel Vuillermoz), Paul (Mathieu Amalric), Esther (Emmanuelle Devos), Sylvia ( Marianne Denicourt), Nathan (Emmanuel Salinger), Patricia (Chiara Mastroianni), Valérie (Jeanne Balibar), Jean-Jacques (Denis Podalydes), Ivan (Fabrice Desplechin), Prof. Chernov (Roland Amstutz), Hélène Lapiower (Grouper), 1996-France)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Some might find this appealing film about Parisian twenty-somethings, who refuse to grow up, to be quite amusing.These troubled student-intellectual types love to talk and are charmingly neurotic, in a film that unjustifiably goes on for three hours but does so in a surprisingly breezy fashion. I would have more carefully edited this film, as there were too many scenes that were nice but not impactful enough to keep. What the film does just right, that caught my interest from a psychological point of view: is penetrate the students' loneliness, the mind-games they play, their ideas about sex and love, their foolish need to lie, and the tribal nature of their relationships.
The antihero of the film is the slightly built, Paul Dedalus (Mathieu Almaric), who plays a natural charmer and vulnerable lover to the three girls (Esther, Sylvia and Valérie). They charmingly fall in love with him and are the cause of all his mental angst. At times, he seems to be merely exhibiting a case of childish pouting, unprepared to find out what he wants to do in life. These sort of devilish characters could be very attractive to the opposite sex, especially if they are handsome like he is and equipped with a facade of sensitivity and innate intelligence.
Paul is a 29-year-old assistant professor, unhappy in his underpaid college position as a philosophy teacher, yet unable to finish his doctorate, failing to take his exams which prevents him from becoming part of the permanent staff. He continues to be indecisive about what to do about his career and personal life. For the last 10- years he has been with his good-natured girlfriend Esther (Devos), whom he wants to dump even though he loves her and she is perfect for him, but he strangely thinks that she is holding him back. So he picks a fight with her. You see, he thinks he loves another girl even more, Sylvia (Denicourt), whose performance steals the film because of her unwitting sexual charm being displayed in such a capricious manner. Our hero has broken up with her after a brief fling two-years ago, but she happens to be going out now with his best and only friend, Nathan (Salinger). Nathan does not know that he knew Sylvia before, which should tell you something about their close friendship. This really fine ensemble cast takes this meandering, real-life type of a story and makes it into an absorbing drama, carefully scrutinizing their intricate and confusing lives.
Paul finally dumps Esther, after he meets a girl named Valérie (Jeanne Balibar) at a party given by an acquaintance, Jean-Jacques (Denis). Valérie is very demanding, and suffers from being a bit metally unbalanced. Jeanne Balibar gives an eye-catching performance, one that adds just the right degree of spice to the meal being cooked. He also wants to be with the evasive Patricia (Chiara Mastroianni), the naive girlfriend of the last two months of his cousin and roommate, Bob (Thibault de Montalembert). Bob, like Paul, has a confused concept about relationships, lightheartedly boasting about all his conquests.
The friends always seem to be together, which brings about some sexual tension. They pseudo intellectualize about their relationships and prowl around the university hang-outs of the in-crowd, and have a facility to behave in an irresponsible manner, not unlike many students the world over do. Paul adds his own perspective to what is happening, as he offers some colorful voiceovers explaining the confused situation he is in and reads the minds of the others he is involved with, offering his unique take on their problems.
There are a few diverting subplots that are deftly handled by the director, as Paul is snubbed by his pretentious ex-friend Rabier (Vuillermoz), who becomes to his chagrin, head of the epistemology department at the university. These embarrassing snubs emphasize to Paul how he is really unsatisfied with how his life is going and this forces him to make another foolish decision, he decides to leave the university because his pride had been hurt. Paul goes to his university mentor for guidance, Professor Chernov (Roland), who turns out to be absent-minded and unable to offer sound advice to the reluctant scholar.
What the film fails to do, after one may grow weary of all the charm it exudes, is provide any rationalizations or explanations for the split-ups and ongoing relationships. By the time the film ends, we are just as much in the dark as we were in the beginning of the film about his love life, except we now know who is doing what to the other. There are no shared intimacies, or greater emotional or intellectual depths explored. But the film is still a rather compelling and superbly acted-out black comedy, that has its glorious moments, but cannot go past its own facile limits it set-for- itself. But any film that can intelligently engage the philosophers Kundera and Kierkegaard into its story, and have an arrogant professor lose his pet monkey in the radiator of his dorm apartment, has my vote of approval.
REVIEWED ON 8/26/99 GRADE: B
Dennis Schwartz: " Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
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