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A Faithful Man (Louis Garrel, 2018)
🕑 Added 2019-07-23 21:14:40 +0000 UTC
Few first-time directors have as many resources at their disposal as Louis Garrel, major French actor, son of legendary director Philippe Garrel. And he certainly used them, co-writing the screenplay with the great Jean-Claude Carrière, bringing on Irina Lubtchansky as D.P., and hiring French cinema axiom Laetitia Casta along with relative newcomer / fellow scion Lily-Rose Depp. Brother Louis wasn't exactly trying for a modest debut.
And yet, A Faithful Man is maddeningly slight. A sort of self-serious sex comedy decked out in Chabrolian garb, Garrel's film is about 75 minutes of bed-hopping and red herrings and none of it goes anywhere particularly important. Garrel plays Abel, a guy whose lover Marianne (Costa) leaves him for his best friend Paul, who dies seven years later. The couple's son (Joseph Engel) thinks his mom murdered his dad, but this is but a speed bump in Abel's path back into Marianne's arms. More vexing is Paul's sister Eve (Depp) who has harbored an obsessive crush on Abel for years. So Garrel has placed himself in the middle of a hot-chick tug of war.
Tonally, A Faithful Man is all over the place, and one gets the sense that Garrel was having fun making it, at least. It's like a concentrated dose of French cinematic cliches, right down to an establishment shot on the Eiffel Tower. Maybe it's a joke, but it wears thin very quickly.
