L'Ami de mon amie (1987)
Directed by Eric Rohmer

Film Review

For the final instalment in his series of six films entitled Comédies et proverbes , Eric Rohmer takes has his starting point the adage that "my friend's friend is also my friend".  From this he constructs an enchanting tale of friendship and fidelity which is embroidered with gentle irony and tenderness.

In many ways, L'Ami de mon amie is the best and most satisfying of the six Comédies et proverbes.  This is partly because of the quality of the acting, which is exceptional even by Rohmer's standards.  More significantly, you feel that Rohmer has fully exploited the resources at his disposal (including the location, his cast and technical crew) to a greater extent than usual.  A good example of this is the beautiful yet totally artificial location for the film, a new University town just outside Paris.  The coldness of the surroundings emphasises the shallowness and vulnerability of the four main characters in the film, modern "yuppy" types who have the same sense of false beauty and self-contented pomposity.

In fact, at first sight, none of the four lead characters has a great deal to engage our sympathy. Blanche is a self-pitying loner who hasn't a single friend; Léa is a capricious flirt who has scant regard for her boyfriend's feelings; Fabien bitterly resents the success of others and appears to regard women as mere sex objects; Alexandre, the worst of the bunch, a sickeningly greasy serial womaniser who is obsessed with himself.   Despite this, Rohmer manages to make the characters appear sympathetic and interesting, through their evolving relationships and individual responses to the events we witness in the film.

The film works so well primarily because Rohmer is such a keen observer of human behaviour and because he understands human nature so well.   The dialogue and the performances are so in tune with our own experiences that we often feel that we are sharing the feelings being portrayed on the screen.  Few directors have this ability to engage so intimately with the audience, and Rohmer's skill is evident here perhaps more than ever as he manages to coerce us into feeling something for a group of people we would normally shun.

Film Synopsis

In a pristine new town on the outskirts of Paris, a young civil servant, Blanche, strikes up a friendship with a computer programmer, Léa.  Whilst Léa has a steady boyfriend, Fabien, Blanche has not had a relationship for some time, but she instantly falls in love when she meets a handsome engineer, Alexandre.  When Léa goes away, apparently having broken up with Fabian, the latter starts to take an interest in Blanche...