Gaspard, played by Melvil Poupaud, is a song writer, a good-looking but
dull young man, a gauche loner with a flat voice and an inexpressive
face who comes to this delightful holiday island of Dinard off the
Brittany coast to await the arrival of his `sort-of' girl friend, who
demonstrates how much she loves him by keeping him waiting for two
weeks. During those two weeks, however, he finds two other girl friends
- or rather they find him. It must be his good-looks, it can't be
anything else. First he is picked up in a restaurant by Margot, a
waitress, who turns out not to be a waitress but an Ethnologist, just
helping out her aunt who owns the restaurant. Obviously such a bright
and intelligent girl could not be merely working-class!
Amanda Langlet, who plays Margot and who appeared ten years earlier in
Rohmer's `Pauline at the Beach.' is clearly the star of this film. Much
of the enjoyment of the film is derived from being in the company of
this vivacious girl and being allowed to eavesdrop on her talk with
Gaspard about love and relationships as they roam in the bright sunlight
around this lovely French sea-side resort and the countryside beyond.
She is such a very warm and sympathetic listener that it is difficult to
understand why he doesn't fall in love with her. Why she doesn't fall in
love with him is easier to understand. (you ask yourself; is this man a
very good actor or a very bad one?) He makes a couple of inept attempts
to move the relationship forward but is repulsed; she wants only
friendship - and you feel he is lucky to get that - while she awaits the
return of her Anthropologist boy-friend who is away in South America.
Gaspard's dullness is made obvious when she takes him to hear an old
sailor sing sea-shanties; her face so eager and enrapt as she listens
intently; his face, alongside, so lifeless.
She encourages him to take up with Solene, played by Gwenaelle Simon in
her first film, a friend of her's who they meet at a dance, but when he
does, she is jealous, jealous of their friendship she says but secretly
hurt that he now thinks of her as only a friend.
His relationship with Solene seems idyllic at first, they seem
marvelously happy and well suited to each other. He is accepted warmly
into her family, they all go sailing together and have a merry
sing-a-long to one of his songs. But then, sadly, her true nature shows;
she becomes aggressive and demanding, insisting that he take her to the
island of Quessant or their relationship is at an end. And now Lena, his
`sort-of' girl friend, played by Aurelia Nolin, appears and insists that
he take her instead. He must now choose.
Rohmer's films are never plot-dependent; he prefers to dwell on the
characters, to bring us into a close, intimate relation with them, while
they reveal themselves in talk. And when the characters are as
attractive as Margot
