L'Amoureuse (1987)
Directed by Jacques Doillon

Film Review

In this engaging minimalist comedy-drama, director Jacques Doillon serves up another banquet of human experience with his customary sensitivity and charm. L'Amoureuse may not be quite up to the standard of Doillon's better known films of this era - La Drôlesse (1979), La Fille de 15 ans (1989) - but it is still an absorbing piece, one that brims with truth and insight. Although the film was made in 1987, it wasn't until 1993 that it made its way on to cinema screens (it did however get an airing on French television in May 1989).

L'Amoureuse compares the experiences of eight very different young women (each vividly interpreted by a superbly gifted actress) who are, in one way or another, well on the way to becoming hopelessly disillusioned with romantic love.  The naturalistic performances and raw cinematography give the film a near-documentary authenticity which heightens the emotional impact of the individual dramas being played out within the oppressive confines of a Normandy resort.

The subject matter is bleak, the setting is far from cheerful, and yet somehow Doillon manages to make this one of his lightest films.  All of the actresses who appeared in this film were virtually unknown at the time but some - notably Marianne Denicourt, Agnès Jaoui and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi - soon went on to enjoy a prolific career in French cinema.  Interestingly, if you arrange the first letters of the first names of the nine actresses in the film (or, equally, the names of the characters they play), you obtain the word 'Machiavel'. Surely this can't be a coincidence...?

Film Synopsis

Eight girlfriends meet up at a resort on the Normandy coast to celebrate the birthday of their friend.  The nine friends are each on the rebound from some emotional crisis but they manage to amuse themselves, mainly by trying to seduce and humiliate any men they can find.  Two of the young women, Elsa and Camille realise that their friend Marie has fallen in love with an American tourist, Dick, and decide to play the role of cupid.