Criticism of ‘Chronicle of an ephemeral love’, French comedy

The internal dynamics of the new by Emmanuel Mouret can be exposed with the title of his previous film: ‘The things we say, the things we do’ (2020). As in that comedy, the French director relies again on verbal pirouettes and the mystery of words to show the distance between what we say and what we do. Also, or more specifically, between what we say we want and what we really want. If in his previous work he did it with a choral story, based on the intersection of various relationships, here he focuses on a couple. They are a single mother (Sandrine Kiberlain) and a married man (Vincent Macaigne), he younger than her, who start an affair with the conviction that their relationship is just that, an affair. Evidently, the affects will demonstrate once again that they cannot always be enclosed in a word.

As in his previous film, Mouret relies on two very clear things to explore this contradiction. One is his condition as a brilliant dialogue writer (this time he signs the script with Pierre Giraud). The other, some splendid actors. Kiberlain and Macaigne, capable of naturally finding chemistry in an odd couple, raise dialogues that are already very well written. The dialogues in ‘Chronicle of an Ephemeral Love’ are complex in their apparent lightness, amusing without needing to rely on jokes, and have a certain voluntary artifice that is not pedantic. Another very attractive aspect of the film, also present in ‘The things we say, the things we do’, is the choreography of the characters’ movement through the different settings of their story. The leading couple in their new work fills the settings of their adventure with life and mystery (parks, museums, hotels, their own and borrowed houses) in which they remind us of two things: that even the most arbitrary place has a memory and that any of the people we come across daily may be living an unforgettable story.

For fans of comedies about the complexity of affections

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DATA SHEET

Address: Emmanuel Mouret Distribution: Sandrine Kiberlain, Vincent Macaigne, Georgia Scalliet, Maxence Tual Country: France Year: 2022 Release date: 24–3-2023 Gender: Romantic comedy Script: Emmanuel Mouret, Pierre Giraud Duration: 100 min.

Synopsis: A single mother and a married man become lovers. They are committed to seeing each other only for a fling and not to find any hope of love, knowing full well that the relationship has no future. However, each time they are more surprised by their understanding, their complicity and the well-being they experience together.