The Nature of Love
Love crosses the class barrier in Monia Chokri’s third feature, splendidly embodied by its two leads.
Magalie Lépine Blondeau
Photo by Fred Gervais, Image courtesy of Vertigo Releasing
The actress Monia Chokri was born in Québec and first came to our notice when appearing in films by Xavier Dolan, 2010's Heartbeats and 2012’s Laurence Anyways. She has been acting ever since but in 2019 branched out by directing a feature film, A Brother’s Love, which she wrote herself. With her second feature, Babysitter, she both directed and starred although she had no hand in the screenplay. Now with The Nature of Love she has the sole credit both as writer and director and also plays a part in it, albeit in a supporting role this time. This exercise in multitasking proves that she has much to offer, but it also reveals some weak points too. Consequently, my rating for the film represents a balancing act that takes account of its failings but also recognises its qualities and not least the excellence of its two leading players, Magalie Lépine-Blondeau and Pierre-Yves Cardinal.
The story told in The Nature of Love is one in which Sophia (that’s Lépine-Blondeau), a philosophy professor living in Québec, has after ten years of marriage to Xavier (Francis-William Rhéaume) accepted the fact that their relationship has become merely companionable. Talking together is always stimulating (he is decidedly bookish) but they now sleep in separate beds. They also have a country retreat where work is required on a chalet and Xavier leaves it to Sophia to travel down there to discuss its renovation. The man who will undertake this is Sylvain (Cardinal’s role) whom Sophia immediately finds engaging. However, while he may be regarded as being the most intellectual member of his family, by Sophia’s standards he is not intellectual at all. On the other hand, he is a hunk, and in next to no time they are in bed having sex. In fact, their night together is so potent an experience that two questions now come to drive the film: will Sophia decide to leave Xavier for Sylvain and would any such move be undermined fatally by the fact that Sylvain and Sophia have such different backgrounds and outlooks?
This is a set-up that could be made the basis of a standard romcom yet what follows might also have been treated wholly as a drama. In the event Chokri opts for a middle course. The central characters are given a degree of conviction in both the writing and the playing which takes us well beyond the sense of make believe usually expected in a romcom. But, even so, the film’s pre-credit sequence, a lively dinner party that finds Sophia and Xavier at the home of their friends, Françoise (played by Chokri) and Philippe (Steve Laplante), carries a sense of parody as they indulge in high-flown intellectual talk. We may wonder too if the film is poking fun at its own rather pretentious knowingness when we see that the bar where Sophia and Sylvain hang out before having sex has the same name as a Buñuel film, La voie lactée.
The best thing about The Nature of Love is undoubtedly the way in which the not infrequent sex scenes involving Sophia and Sylvain are handled. Instead of excessive emphasis on nudity as such as so often happens in films today, what is conveyed so vividly here is the passionate intensity of it. If that is to the credit of Lépine-Blondeau and Cardinal, it is also greatly aided by Chokri’s direction and by Pauline Gaillard’s editing. It’s this aspect above all that engages the viewer and which encourages our concern as to whether or not these lovers will find a way forward. But here the screenplay fails to build on what it has set up so persuasively. Any doubts we may have as to the depth of Sylvain's feelings are in keeping (we know that he's had many girlfriends and when he says that it's special with Sophia it's reasonable to wonder if he is as truthful as he seems). However, in time we get a scene in which jealousy of Xavier causes him to behave badly yet this other aspect of Sylvain’s character having surfaced once is never touched on again.
Rather more importantly, however playful the early references to attitudes to love and desire as expressed by Plato, Spinoza, Schopenhauer and the like, given that our central figures carry conviction one does expect the film to take an effective look at the valid question that is the backbone of it: if sexual rapport between two people is so strong, do other differences in experience and outlook render a lasting relationship impossible? But, instead of following that course, the film falls back on satirising in an increasingly banal way both Sophia’s arty acquaintances and Sylvain’s gormless family who believe in ghosts and UFOs. Instead of drawing us in even more, the last third of the film is its weakest part and even the resolution of the tale loses out further when Chokri opts to present it with an emphasis on stylised images. Nevertheless, there is no denying that in Lépine-Blondeau and Cardinal the film does offer us a great screen couple.
Original title: Simple comme Sylvain.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Magalie Lépine-Blondeau, Pierre-Yves Cardinal, Francis-William Rhéaume, Monia Chokri, Guillaume Laurin, Marie-Ginette Guay, Steve Laplante, Mathieu Baron, Linda Sorgini, Lubna Playoust, Micheline Lanctôt, Christina Beaulieu, Guy Thauvette, Johanna Toretto.
Dir Monia Chokri, Pro Sylvain Corbeil, Nancy Grant, Nathanaël Karmitz and Elisha Karmitz, Screenplay Monia Chokri, Ph André Turpin, Art Dir Colombe Raby, Ed Paulinę Gaillard, Music Emile Sornin, Costumes Guillaume Laflamme.
Met Films/MK Productions/Ciné+/Cinémage 17/Arte Cofinova 19-Vertigo Releasing.
112 mins. Canada/France/Italy. 2023. UK and US Rel: 5 July 2024. Cert. 15.
