QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM VENICE

Joan (India hair), Alice (Camille Cottin) and Rebecca (Sara Forestier) are best friends. They are young and attractive school teachers, all three in their 30s. They live in the largely peaceful and uneventful Lyon, in Southeastern France. Their love lives provide them with the excitement and challenges required in order to forget ahead. And it isn’t all joy and convenience. Being alive is also about experiencing suffering, fear and anxiety. Just like everyone else, they must learn this the hard way,.

Part of the story is narrated by Joan’s husband Victor (Vincent Macaigne). He becomes desperate upon finding out that his wife is no longer in love with him. The knowledge that he hasn’t done anything wrong, and that she hasn’t even found a lover, only serves to fuel his frustration further. Joan does not accept Alice’s advice that this is entirely normal, and instead insists that she should break up with Victor. Alice explains with didactic conviction that she has never truly loved her husband Eric, yet they are perfectly happy together. Unbeknownst to her, Rebecca is having an affair with the man she claims not to love. And the mistress has a lot of love to give Eric. One day, Victor makes a silly mistake that abruptly changes everything. A radical gesture so effective that he compares it to “instant therapy”.

Other men come into the picture. Rebecca goes on an awful date with a kind yet uninteresting Antoine with the sole purpose of making Eric jealous. Alice meets a famous painter who calls her upon dreaming her telephone number. Martin and Thomas tussle for Joan’s affection, while a far more accepting Victor watches their movements from a distance. Despite the silent and the overt rivalries, hate never prevails in Emmanuel Mouret’s 13th feature. Not even the males display toxic behaviour. Trois Amies is a resolutely love-positive film.

Falling out of love can be more comforting than falling in love, the three women learn. The tribulations of intense passion and romance are sometimes just too much to handle. At times, it’s best to stick to your partner, even if the relationship lacks even the faintest spark. At other times, it’s best to take yours chances and risk everything in the name of love. There is no set of established rules in the game of love. At times you win, at times you lose, at times you cheat, at times they skip your turn, at times it all comes to an end abruptly and without explanation. After all “love is a rebel bird”, says the Bizet song in the film score (the tune is also prominently featured in Pablo Larrain’s Maria, showing in the same competitive strand).

This is also a movie about friendship, complicity and kindness. The realisation that they are as vulnerable as the friends, makes Joan, Alice and Rebecca care profoundly for each other – even where they share the same romantic ambitions. They understand that dormant sentiments, fortuitous serendipities and impromptu affiliations could turn their life upside down in one split second. These trivial takeaways are delivered with Truffaut-esque confidence and sensibility. A tour-de-force of well-worn romantic platitudes, displayed with refreshed vigour and authenticity. A finely acted, charming little film guaranteed to elicit a few tears from just about anyone who’s ever been in love (or out of it).

Trois Amies just premiered in the Official Competition of the 81st Venice International Film Festival.