OFFICIAL SELECTION – IN COMPETITION
In 2018, a team of broken arms battered by life, depressed but very motivated to become synchronized swimming champions had dragged an entire room into the water of the pool, who came out euphoric. The Great Bath, a choral comedy by Gilles Lellouche, screened that year at the closing of the Cannes Film Festival, unanimously delighted the spectators. And brought tears to the director’s eyes, moved by such a welcome.
Six years later, he returned to Cannes, this time in competition, for L‘Love phewa feature film of almost three hours about a story that can be summed up in a few words: as a teenager, in the 1980s, a young thug and a good girl in every way fall head over heels in love with each other, then life separates them for ten years, before reuniting them.
The argument could suggest a sentimental comedy if it were not for the energy that Gilles Lellouche deploys in distancing us from it through the use of another genre, the gangster film. A register that he invests with great fanfare, car races and stunts, fighting scenes saturated with American-style shots, highlighted by an inadvertent use of tracking shots, high and low angles. Love phew, Yes. But with grip, if not thickness.
Adrenaline and testosterone
The two young people in question have nothing – and yet everything – to do together. Clotaire (Malik Frikah), son of a tender mother and a nimble worker father, hangs out with his friends, a gang of thugs who don’t mind opening their mouths and committing a few thefts. Jackie (Mallory Wanecque), daughter of a loving father (Alain Chabat) who is raising her alone, since the death of his wife, diligently follows her studies and does not linger in the streets. Against all odds, Clotaire and Jackie will fall in love with each other with a crazy love, which will make them experience the slightest swim or moped ride intensely.
Clotaire, however, allows himself to be drawn into one or two theft cases orchestrated by a local boss (Benoît Poelvoorde) with whom he believes he has found a pseudo-father. Alas, a robbery goes wrong, which sends Clotaire directly to prison for the murder of a cash courier, which he did not commit. The culprit being the kingpin’s son, the teenager has no choice but to remain silent.
When he leaves, ten years later, Clotaire (François Civil) will not find Jackie. She met one of the bosses of a car rental agency company (Vincent Lacoste) with whom she moved in. During this long break, where violence gives way to a rather easy daily life, Jackie (Adèle Exarchopoulos) smiles, seems in love again. The past seems to have moved away, we can nevertheless guess that boredom is gaining ground. Awakened by Clotaire, to whom the film returns, who since his release no longer has a taste for anything but will attempt revenge against the son of the boss, in whose place he was locked up.
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