This surface-scratching love-triangle drama from Diane Kurys is emblematic of the type of insipid period drama she specialises in. A political backdrop that's discussed more than evoked, hunky men flirting with danger and disaster, and porcelain-featured women flirting with those same hunky men, their validity as strong female characters undermined by their obsession with the men in their lives. Kurys has made the film she wanted for herself - pour une femme indeed, and possibly seulement une femme. Communists in post-WWII France make for quaint costumes and dashing, ideologically-charged young men, as Kurys depicts an era which she doesn't just intimate is pivotal but specifically declares is (framing devices in the 1980s and 90s take care of that) with a nonchalance that's very French, yes, and very Kurys, yes, but very involving? No. And we don't even need the supplementary story, with Sylvie Testud and a dodgily-aged Benoit Magimel, to help signpost where Kurys' predictable plot is headed (indeed, it only makes it more predictable) - as soon as Nicholas Duvauchelle's cheekbones slice their way through the celluloid on first appearance, the entire trajectory becomes instantly clear. Fifteen years ago, that was M. Magimel. The years have been kinder to him than Mme. Kurys has. Period recreation is convincing, though there's definitely considerable licence to snazz up the aesthetics in a melodrama such as this. True to form, Kurys keeps it modest, and it feels like one of many missed opportunities within this film. The actors seem aware of the banality of their roles, and thus invest rather little in fleshing them out. I'll be the last to blame them for that.
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