L’Amour ouf: Totally Electrifying or Furiously Embarrassing?

I can one rewind time so easily without giving the impression of having lost oneself in one’s old dreams. On the occasion of the release of Top Gun: Maverick in 2022. Two years later, L’Amour ouf confirms his bitter observation. Because Gilles Lellouche’s film is overflowing with nostalgia: from its plot set in the working-class environment of northern France in the 1980s to the hits of The Cure that make up its soundtrack, not to mention the many echoes of works of yesteryear belonging to the filmmaker’s personal pantheon. Through the figures of two teenagers who are complete opposites she goes to high school, he prefers to hang out all day rather than set foot there.

The crazy enthusiasm of Gilles Lellouche

Gilles Lellouche and cinema, it’s a love story that doesn’t set any barriers. In 2004, the actor went behind the camera for the first time when he co-directed Narco with Tristan Aurouet . The opportunity to direct big names in comedy — Guillaume Canet, Léa Drucker, Diane Kruger , Guillaume Gallienne, Valérie Lemercier , Benoît Poelvoorde , Laurent Lafitte , among others. He repeated the experience with Le Grand Bain, in 2018. The sensitive and intelligent film was a real commercial triumph, with nearly 4.2 million admissions. Buoyed by this success, Lellouche is preparing his third feature film, a project born seventeen years ago when Benoît Poelvoorde offered him the novel by Irish writer Neville Thompson. Immediately captivated by this thwarted romance set against a backdrop of class struggle, which also reminds him of “ eras that were his own ”, the French filmmaker has the idea of ​​adapting it for the big screen. And he is keen to show that he is up to the task.

Aided by a screenplay written by Audrey Diwan and Ahmed Hamidi, his version of L’Amour ouf is more than daring: both in its length close to 3 hours, its colossal budget 35.7 million euros and its high-flying cast, which brings together the most famous faces of French cinema as well as promising new actors. Unveiled as a world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival , where it competed in the Official Competition before leaving empty-handed, Gilles Lellouche ‘s film is now in theaters.

Ambitions and Disappointments

After a flashy opening scene, setting the tone for the minutes that follow, comes the meeting between our two protagonists: Jacqueline, known as Jackie, and Clotaire. If we already have reservations about the fragile credibility of a thunderbolt born from the insults addressed by one to the other, the adventures that shake up their romance only increase our feeling. The two lovers never leave each other, despite strong social and family differences, until bad company leads the young man to taste beatings, delinquency and then prison. During his incarceration, Jackie pretends not to wait for him, although the length of the film shows us the opposite. She thus marries a richer, more weary businessman, and above all less likely to disappear. But this new life is turned upside down when, twelve years later, Clotaire is released from prison and does everything to see and win back his sweetheart. In a perfect caricature of lively and troubled love, the latter will find themselves in a final sequence of ultra-violence as thick as it is eroticized.

Passion above all, according to Gilles Lellouche . It doesn’t matter if it is outdated, or even toxic, as long as it is spectacular. Once again, the filmmaker does not seek to set himself a barrier. And if it is necessary to evacuate all nuance to realize this fantasy, he does not hesitate. He mocks the measure, just like any correlation with reality – yet so welcome to this type of story. While the feature film has already largely exceeded a million admissions, one can only question the impact of such a patriarchal representation in the contemporary cultural landscape. Did we really need it?

A crude romantic tragedy, a cloying heist film or an incongruous but still captivating musical comedy, it is difficult to assign a genre to L’Amour ouf as it aims to show everything, to bring everything together – and ends up no longer saying much that is endearing. It is perhaps the mastery of its actors that saves, a little, Lellouche ‘s work. The young Mallory Wanecque seen in Les Pires, by Lise Akoka and Romane Guéret, two years ago and Malik Frikah are formidable in this respect.

Their eye contact, silly smiles and trembling hands that seek each other at all costs bring a real breath of fresh air to this fresco that one could judge as interminable. In addition to the expected performances of Adèle Exarchopoulos and François Civil, we also appreciate the secondary roles of Alain Chabat as a tenderly clumsy father and of Élodie Bouchez who is always very accurate. It is a shame that their sincerity was hampered by the rest. In the case of the latter, we particularly regret her role as a tearful mother, which we find in Jackie, whose field of action is limited to waiting for Clotaire, tears rolling down her red cheeks. In Lellouche , women are thus confined to private spheres, indoors, where men run at full speed in the immensity of the city, and hit walls, windows, people a bit of everything they find, ultimately. Why? Lellouche does not look into the question. The violence is there, gratuitous. Never explained, but always exposed in a crude display. Enough to stifle all the emotion of the film , which does not succeed in reaching us.

L’Amour ouf by Gilles Lellouche with François Civil, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Mallory Wanecque, Malik Frikah, Alain Chabat, Vincent Lacoste, currently in theaters.