Direction: Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet
Country: France
The first feature from writer-director Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet is a funnily satirized bubble of joy and pleasure delivered with a personal tone and the witty observation of Marivaux. It’s a fiction about the 30-year-old Anaïs (Anaïs Demoustier), a whimsical, hyperactive, claustrophobic, and carefree character who is free from the constraints of judgement, modesty, or any other.
She just broke up with her boyfriend, and now lives alone in a big apartment in Paris. Broke, she’s two months behind in rent, which forces her to sublet, but she's not willing to give up on her impulses and curiosities. Following her first encounter with Daniel (Denis Podalydès), a fifty-something book publisher, she sleeps with him. But then she suddenly becomes more interested in his wife, Emilie (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), a versatile and experienced writer. The latter is working on an essay about curiosity, and Anais would be an interesting object of study. I found more here than a mere love triangle. There’s ongoing learning, ardent desire, and peculiar personalities that make it distinct from other French romantic comedies.
The central character is tailor-made for Demoustier, who embodies this unbridled heroine with absolute grace, charm, and intense vibrancy. She pulls off some really wonderful moments with her hedonistic existence. In opposition to this wild, obsessed nature, Tedeschi exudes restraint, lucidity and maturity, without sacrificing sensuality. All this is formidably detailed under the astringent direction of Bourgeois-Tacquet, who also sets an effective pace for her fun-to-watch story.
