Movie Maven

Written by: Christophe Honore

Starring: Louis Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier, Clotilde Hesme

I was, however, able to make the screening of "Love Songs," a quirky little French musical about a struggling young couple who decide to engage in a threesome. It's a film that has a lot of charm, but unfortunately not much in the way of coherence or narrative organization. The plot is a bit clumsy, moving forward in fits and starts instead of smoothly transitioning. The music may have a big part to play in this; the tunes are generic French pop-fueled compositions, and they seem to appear out of nowhere, jolting the viewer out of the narrative. And, though this is not the film's fault, there is nothing more awkward than having to translate a musical number into subtitles. A genuinely touching line in French becomes something like "Let it (your saliva) trickle like sweet venom down my throat." Such lyrical faux pas does nothing for the rhythm of a piece, as it simply makes the viewer stop and desperately try to register the absurdity of the phrase.

The jaunty, frothy first third of the film is tripped up by a senseless death that causes the parties in the threesome to reevaluate themselves in an absurdist reality that can be both cold and filled with congeniality. The boyfriend, Ismael, begins being stalked by both his girlfriend's sister Jeanne, and a local Breton boy. Alice, the "trois" in this menage a trois, is shunted to the side in the aftermath and must become the ruler of her own happiness. Despite the loose threads of the narrative, or perhaps even because of them, this second portion of the film is moving and delicate, and this frailness becomes almost charming.

Photo courtesy of Indiewire.com, via Takepart.com.