My Friends My Loves

Director: Lorraine Levy
Cast: Vincent Lindon, Pascal Elbe and Virginie Ledoyen
Releasing in cinemas: 16 July 2009
Rated: M

Meet the French Odd Couple

Here’s another of those romantic comedies so beloved of the French, hardly reaching for the sky yet providing pleasant escapism without being especially memorable. Many of this French genre are in the same bracket, only occasionally do we find a real gem.

The story’s surprisingly set in South Kensington, an enclave of ex-pat French living in London called predictably ‘Frog Alley’. The comedy seems influenced by Richard Curtis, much in his Notting Hill oeuvre, and yes there’s even the pot smoking funeral scene. Some attractive shots of London but as all the characters are French even people in the street, there’s scarcely a line spoken in English. It might just as well been filmed in Paris, traditional home for affairs of the heart.

Lonely divorced Mathias (Vincent Lindon) moves to Frog Alley from Paris at the request of best friend Antoine (Pascal Elbe) also divorced, to set up a shared home for their two children by knocking out a wall between their dwellings. Doing the Odd Couple thing. They can take turns in looking after Antoine’s son Louis (Tom Invernizzi) and Mathias’s daughter Emilie (Garance Le Guillermic), divide the housework, and be company for each other on Sunday nights.

What appears to be an ideal solution for these sadly single guys falls in a heap when drop dead gorgeous Audrey (Virginie Ledoyen) saunters into the bookshop recently taken over by Mathias. He’s suddenly smitten by this young journalist.

An unreasonably stringent set of house rules are set down by fastidious Antoine, they include no baby sitters, no girlfriends brought home, and a midnight curfew. Restrictions which now don’t work for Mathias desperately trying to court Audrey. The odd couple try to sort out parental obligations, previous wives, and interaction with the locals, while Antoine’s strict attitude makes new found romance for Mathias absurdly difficult. A split in their friendship seems inevitable.

Based on Marc Levy’s popular novel directed by his sister Lorraine Levy, it exploits with restrained humour the differences between the two main characters. Mathias, rumpled grumpy irresponsible and suffering vertigo, not the least stressed about home cleanliness. Uptight architect Antoine is house proud almost obsessive compulsive, actually looks a more likely partner for young Audrey. Another director might have recast them in opposite roles. Yet often in French romantic cinema the unlikely protagonist wins the lovely lady.

Fortunately there’s a degree of chemistry between Vincent Lindon (Chaos) and Pascal Elbe (A Pain in the Ass) as the central characters. They play off each other well in scenes together. The children Tom Invernizzi and Garance Le Guillermic add the required cuteness. Virginie Ledoyen (Shall We Kiss) makes a notable impression as the beautiful journalist. We quickly recognize Audrey's eye-candy value when in her first scene the camera dwells on her shapely legs.

The modest comedy is given a touch of pathos in the scenes of the old bookstore owner passing his shop to Mathias, and the sudden death of vivacious café proprietor Irene (Bernadette Lefont). Sound track breaks with French language, effectively using in a tender love scene the English version of Marlene Dietrich’s ‘Falling in Love Again’ from The Blue Angel. The filming around London is typically postcard stuff, with overall competent camerawork.

Lorraine Levy helms the pic without any particular flair or vices, yet finally the comedy like a soggy sago pudding doesn’t quite make the frothy dessert. These characters live in an imaginary world which has little relation to the real one. It takes a big leap of faith to accept provocative Audrey would be interested in a rambling wreck twice her age who has a fear of falling out of trees.

John Bale

Send us your feedback on this review