French film photo galley for Romance/Comedy

French films Romance/Comedy

Jeux d'enfants (2003)

Yann Samuell’s bizarre romantic comedy begins as what looks like an apprentice filmmaker’s take on Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain (2002), complete with irritating zooms, over-saturated photography and children acting unconvincingly as adults. Once you manage to get past this off-putting prelude... [More...]

Pas sur la bouche (2003)

How strange that one of the great innovators of French cinema, Alain Resnais, should spend the twilight years of his career making musical comedies. Pas sur las bouche is a straight film adaptation of a largely forgotten French operetta from the 1920s and presumably hopes to capitalise on the success of Resnais’ previous musical offering... [More...]

Bienvenue en Suisse (2004)

Old rivalries between France and Switzerland come to the fore in this breezy romantic comedy from débutante Swiss film director, Léa Fazer. Vincent Perez, Emmanuelle Devos and Denis Podalydès are the attractive participants in a quirky ménage-à-trois romp which sees one man chase after an inheritance of dubious provenance whilst the other chases after his... [More...]

Quand la mer monte... (2004)

Quand la mer monte is a beguiling first film from the improbable directorial partnership of actress Yolande Moreau and cinematographer Gilles Porte. The simplicity of the story and its prosaic, understated realisation gives the film both a stark realism and a highly engaging lyrical quality, making it one of the most unusual and charming French films in recent years... [More...]

Angel-A (2005)

When it was first released in 2005, Angel-A offered two high profile comebacks for the price of one. First and foremost, it marked Luc Besson’s long-awaited return to directing after a five year absence. Since his last film, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), Besson had been busy orchestrating a string of box office hits as a highly successful film producer... [More...]

Au suivant! (2005)

For her directorial debut feature, Jeanne Biras draws on her many years’ experience as a casting director. The premise for the film clearly has some mileage but Biras fails to develop a coherent structure and her characters are no more than silly broad-brush stereotypes. With more work on the script, this could have been a very funny and enjoyable film... [More...]

Combien tu m'aimes? (2005)

For over three decades, French filmmaker Bertrand Blier has been taunting, pleasing and surprising cinema audiences (in roughly equal measure) with his provocative, uniquely unreal brand of cinema. His latest film, Combien tu m’aimes?, goes further than many of his previous films into the realms of absurdity and invites us to reflect on the value of human relationships in a society... [More...]

Gentille (2005)

Sophie Fillières third and most unusual to date - after Grande petite (1994) and Aïe (2000) - feels like a distinctly Gallic take on Bridget Jones, featuring a confident young career woman who balks at the prospect of marriage. The main appeal of the film is its slightly surreal edge which reinforces the first person perspective without making it appear too obvious... [More...]

Il ne faut jurer de rien! (2005)

Here’s a throwback to one kind of film that was once hugely popular – particularly in the 1960s – but which has become comparatively rare: the family-friendly comedy-historical. Il ne faut jurer de rien has echoes of many classic films of this genre – from Cartouche (1962) to Les Mariés de l’an II (1971)... [More...]

Je préfère qu'on reste amis (2005)

This entertaining comedy-drama (a pleasing mix of rom-com and buddy movie) marks the promising directorial debut of a talented duo, Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, who had previously made just a handful of short films. It’s an amusing yet rather poignant account of a problem which is affecting an increasing number of people... [More...]

Je vous trouve très beau (2005)

Actress and writer Isabelle Mergault made her directorial debut with this flimsy but engaging comedy-drama. Despite a respectable performance from Michel Blanc, an actor with an unrivalled talent for conveying the poignancy of solitude, the film scores pretty low on the sincerity scale, thanks to the frequent outbursts of premeditated schmaltz... [More...]

L'Un reste, l'autre part (2005)

It’s hard to see how director Claude Berri could go wrong with a cast which includes five of the most highly rated actors in French cinema, but goes wrong he most certainly does in this banal, pretty indigestible concoction of melodrama and farce. Within the first ten minutes, L’Un reste, l’autre part reveals itself as yet another shallow and rather tedious depiction of... [More...]

Les Enfants (2005)

Anyone who enjoyed Christian Vincent’s beguiling 1994 film La Séparation is encouraged to take a look at this similar, lovingly crafted portrait of domestic strife, which takes a light-hearted look at the stresses and strains that children can place on an adult relationship. In common with much of his work... [More...]

Les Poupées russes (2005)

It’s hardly surprising, giving the enormous success of L’Auberge espagnole (2002), that director Cédric Klapisch would make a sequel featuring the same menagerie of colourful characters. In Les Poupées russes, Xavier and his former friends are no longer free-spirited penniless students but adult tax-paying professionals who... [More...]

Coeurs (2006)

The master returns - not to cheer us, but to break our hearts. Despite being comfortably into his ninth decade, Alain Resnais still hasn’t lost the knack of making films that reward the eye, stimulate the intellect and stir the soul. After his deliciously stylish musical comedy, Pas sur la bouche (2003), the elder statesman of the French New Wave serves up another irresistible feast of a... [More...]

Comme t'y es belle! (2006)

A characteristically Gallic variant on a theme that had been done to death in such TV shows as Absolutely Fabulous and Sex and the City, Comme t’y es belle appears to be hopelessly caricatured, despite the spirited contributions from its lead performers. For her second film, director Lisa Azuelos seems to be obsessed with how things were in the hectic nineties... [More...]

Hors de prix (2006)

Although somewhat less substantial and original than Pierre Salvadori’s previous films, this sparkling comedy has immense appeal, thanks to the felicitous casting of Gad Elmaleh and Audrey Tautou in what look like made-to-measure roles. It’s predictable formulaic stuff, offering few surprises and even less character depth... [More...]

On va s'aimer (2006)

Director Ivan Calbérac followed up his promising début feature Irène (2002) with this somewhat less inspiring romantic comedy which tries to conceal its banality through the now hackneyed device of having the main characters break into song as and when the mood takes them. The idea of incorporating songs into a dramatic narrative is not new and has been done successfully... [More...]

Prête-moi ta main (2006)

Prête-moi ta main offers a welcome respite from the blizzard of vulgar, trite and overly Americanised comedies that have assailed French cinema in recent years. This is a return to basics – a witty, engaging and original romantic comedy of the kind that has an immense appeal to French and international audiences alike... [More...]

Quatre étoiles (2006)

If the plot of Quatre étoiles appears vaguely familiar that is probably because it is virtually identical to that of another French films, Hors de prix, released the same year. Both films owe something to Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief (1955), with the Grace Kelly role played by two highly regarded French actresses... [More...]

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