Boyfriends and Girlfriends

Every reviewer has a blind spot; mine has always been the highly-regarded films of Eric Rohmer. Two or three set changes to enliven 100 minutes of banal conversation about love, has just never been my idea of good filmmaking. Boyfriends and Girlfriends gets off to the usual Rohmer start. Two young girls, who really have no obvious reason to form a friendship, immediately become best buddies, and start talking about love (with nicer backdrops here than in earlier Rohmer efforts). But about twenty minutes in, after the boyfriends are introduced, something unusual begins to happen: a story. Blanche (Emmanuelle Chaulet) develops a crush on the strikingly handsome, but empty, Alexandre (Francois-Eric Gendron), who, in turn, has set his sights on the sexual conquest of Lea (Sophie Renoir), who has a relationship of convenience with outdoor enthusiast Fabien (Eric Viellard). Over the course of the film, the relationships shift, and Blanche and Fabien have a brief affair, while Lea and Alexandre do the same. What makes this almost didactic little exercise interesting is that the characters are given room to grow. When Blanche and Fabien finally end up together, it feels so right, that we're ready to crack open the champagne. Recommended. (R. Pitman)