{"id":9942,"date":"2024-12-11T17:26:22","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T22:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=9942"},"modified":"2024-12-11T17:26:22","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T22:26:22","slug":"a-faithful-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/12\/11\/a-faithful-man\/","title":{"rendered":"A Faithful Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"A Faithful Man <\/strong>(2018)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Kino Lorber\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 75 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (thematic elements, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Louis Garrel\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Louis Garrel and Jean-Claude Carriere\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Philippe Sarde\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Irina Lubtchansky\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 13, 2019 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Louis Garrel, Laetitia Casta, Lily-Rose Depp, Joseph Engel, Diane Courseille, Vladislav Galard.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $1.9M (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Spoken in French w\/English subtitles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0I fear that many of my fellow Americans will be put off by the French-language film A Faithful Man<\/strong> due to its classification as a romantic comedy. It\u2019s NOT like the rom-coms we\u2019re used to seeing at the multiplex. Maybe it\u2019s time for a discussion about the differences between American and French rom-coms. The main difference is American rom-coms tend to rely on concept while French ones are more situational. By way of a recent example, I\u2019ll use this year\u2019s Isn\u2019t It Romantic starring Rebel Wilson. She plays a cynical non-romantic who gets hit on the head and wakes up in a world modeled after the rom-com movies she detests. That\u2019s a concept. In A Faithful Man<\/strong>, a man\u2019s life becomes complicated when an old girlfriend comes back into his life. That\u2019s a situation. See what I\u2019m talking about?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Another big difference is that American rom-coms tend to be populated by character types while French ones have characters. To illustrate this, let\u2019s go back a bit to the 80s and Some Kind of Wonderful. In it, \u201cthe nice guy\u201d pursues \u201cthe hot girl\u201d without noticing his \u201cbest female friend\u201d has a thing for him. This is the template for many an American rom-com. In A Faithful Man<\/strong>, we get actual characters, fully realized ones that could actually exist in the real world. Finally, there\u2019s the style of humor. The comedy in American rom-coms is typically broad whereas it\u2019s more subtle in French-made ones. I\u2019ll come back to this last point momentarily.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The death of a spouse may not sound like comedy material, but director\/co-writer Louis Garrel makes it work in A Faithful Man<\/strong>. He plays Abel who, at the beginning of the movie, is informed by his girlfriend Marianne (Casta, Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life) that she\u2019s been cheating on him with his best friend Paul, that she\u2019s pregnant with his child, plans to marry him in ten days time and would he kindly move out of their apartment. All things considered, he takes it rather well save for a tumble down the stairs. Nine years pass until Abel sees Marianne again. It seems that Paul has died quite suddenly. Abel attends the funeral where he reconnects with Marianne who now has an 8YO son Joseph (Engel). They get together a couple of weeks later and decide to give it another go.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Resuming his old relationship with Marianne brings with it a major complication in the form of Paul\u2019s younger sister Eve (Depp, The King) who\u2019s had a thing for Abel since she was a child. In those days, she used to secretly follow him and take pictures of him on her phone. He never noticed her because she was a child, but that should change now that she\u2019s grown up. She still likes him and wants to be with him so she confronts Marianne and asks if she\u2019ll let her have Abel. A bemused Marianne asks what would happen if she says no. Eve replies, \u201cThen it\u2019s war.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0Here\u2019s another area in which French rom-coms differ from ours. In an American rom-com, all sorts of Bride Wars-type shenanigans would ensue with the two women pulling all sorts of dirty tricks on each other. In all likelihood, we\u2019d be talking about a mean-spirited comedy that leaves a bitter aftertaste. That is NOT what goes down in A Faithful Man<\/strong>. I don\u2019t want to give it away, but let\u2019s just say it\u2019s handled in a distinctively European way. It also illustrates my earlier point about broad vs. subtle humor. Instead of pratfalls and a lot of bedroom farce-style gags (e.g. sneaking around, hiding in closets and under beds), the humor is inherent in the situation and the characters. The people in A Faithful Man<\/strong> are unique without being cartoons. Take the boy Joseph. To call him precocious would be an understatement. This kid is into police procedurals. He hangs out at the local police station where he asks questions about investigative techniques and such. He tries to convince Abel that his mother murdered his father. He\u2019s a little scary, to be honest. I wouldn\u2019t say he\u2019s evil like that rotten little brat in Three Peaks, but he\u2019s no angel either. He\u2019s an unusually intelligent child reacting to a situation over which he has no control. It\u2019s to the young actor\u2019s credit that Joseph is a credible character. It\u2019s to Garrel\u2019s credit as a filmmaker that this aspect of A Faithful Man<\/strong> elicits laughs rather than chills.<\/p>\n

\u00a0All of the central performances in A Faithful Man<\/strong> are terrific. Garrel uses his sultry good looks to full effect as a man in an unusual romantic situation. His is an understated performance, especially in his voiceovers. After all that business with Marianne at the beginning, he quietly characterizes their exchange as \u201cbrutal\u201d. If you understand the French mindset, you understand that they\u2019re like that which is why his comment is funny. Garrel has great chemistry with Casta whose character isn\u2019t necessarily painted as a villain. Sure, she cheated on Abel in the past and wants him back now that the other man is dead. She\u2019s definitely a head case and a bit of a manipulator too. It\u2019s she who comes up with the unique solution to the Eve situation. Speaking of which, Depp does fine work in the role. Her character is also pretty out there. In the US, she\u2019s what we call a stalker. I\u2019m sure that\u2019s what she\u2019d be called in France too, but at least she\u2019s civilized about it meaning no boiled bunnies or kidnapped kids.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The more I think about A Faithful Man<\/strong>, the more I like it. It\u2019s so very French. It benefits greatly from a pleasing score by Philippe Sarde. The city of Paris, as usual, is a pretty place for lovers. What makes it all come together so well is Garrel\u2019s light touch. Its short running time (a mere 75 minutes) gives it the feel of a brief romantic encounter. It\u2019s a sweet, amusing little movie that goes down as easily as a vanilla souffl\u00e9.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Faithful Man (2018)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Kino Lorber\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 75 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (thematic elements, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Louis Garrel\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Louis Garrel and Jean-Claude Carriere\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Philippe Sarde\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Irina Lubtchansky\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 13, 2019 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Louis Garrel, Laetitia Casta, Lily-Rose Depp, Joseph Engel, Diane Courseille, Vladislav Galard.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $1.9M (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Spoken […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10305,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-foreign"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/A-Faithful-Man-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9942"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10307,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9942\/revisions\/10307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}