The actor and director brings together an impressive cast in a film that ranges from romance to thriller to musical comedy.
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Reading time: 2 min
Second feature film directed solo by Gilles Lellouche, after The Great Bathselected out of competition in 2018, Love phew is this time in the running for the Palme d’Or. Playing on several tables – thriller, romance, comedy, musical – its screening in Cannes concluded with long applause.
Ambitious, with one of the biggest budgets in French cinema in 2024, Love phew should find its audience who will be able to discover it in theaters from October 20.
A prolific actor, Gilles Lellouche is no less so behind the camera, if we count co-directing, participation in a sketch film and several short films. Love phew brings together an exceptional cast: François Civil, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Alain Chabat, Vincent Lacoste, Benoît Poelvoorde, Jean-Pascal Zadi, Elodie Bouchez and Raphaël Quenard, to name only the best known.
Precocious high school lovers, the studious Jackie (Adèle Exarchopoulos) and the dilettante Clotaire (François Civil) who introduced her to his underworld world, met in the early 1980s in a port town in the north of France. Many years pass, and after 17 years in prison, Clotaire is determined to win back his love at all costs, even though she is married to a wealthy young entrepreneur (Vincent Lacoste).
Gilles Lellouche reunites with his co-writer accomplice of Great Bath, Ahmed Hamidi, in a lively film that takes us from start to finish. Well paced, Love phew would, however, have deserved to be a little more concise, even if the film makes up for this drawback with incisive dialogues, and beautiful moments of musical comedy orchestrated by the dance collective La Horde.
Moving flexibly from one genre to another, this “epic” romance, which spans twenty years, goes off the beaten track. Its heterogeneity is only apparent, and love is its common thread. If one is caught up in the action and the feelings, however, there remains the strange impression, due to its prestigious casting, of seeing more of the actors and less of their characters. But originality, talent and enthusiasm make the flow flow.
Gender : Musical romance
Director : Gilles Lellouche
Actors: François Civil, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Mallory Wanecque
Country : Belgic /France
Duration : 2h46
Exit : October 16, 2024
Distributer : StudioCanal
Synopsis: Jackie and Clotaire grew up between the high school benches and the port docks. She studies, he hangs out. And then their destinies intersect and it’s mad love. Life will try to separate them but nothing works, these two are like the two ventricles of the same heart…