After garnering critical praise from the foreign press during its premiere at Cannes, then during its appearance at TIFF, Monia Chokri’s third feature film, Simple like Sylvain, finally takes the poster. Yes the buzz was justified. Because this is a wildly intelligent, furiously funny, but also bittersweet romantic comedy that the filmmaker offers. The film also has astonishing formal mastery, which doesn’t spoil anything. Magalie Lépine-Blondeau and Pierre-Yves Cardinal share a burning complicity as opposite lovers, she the intellectual, he the “manual”. Enjoyable, to put it mildly.
Sophia, the protagonist, is celebrating her 40th birthday these days. On the surface, the young woman is satisfied, but quickly, signs of latent dissatisfaction appear: this tired expression when her partner Xavier cuts her off during a dinner with friends, this absent air during lovemaking…
But now, thanks to renovations to be undertaken at the couple’s new chalet, Sophia meets Sylvain, a local entrepreneur. Suddenly, the city girl is troubled by the crude magnetism of the “wooden guy”. The way in which Monia Chokri narrates and films the initial attraction, the tense waltz-hesitation, the breathless rapprochement, then the unbridled act, provokes hilarity and shivers of anticipated pleasure.
In a judicious choice, the director and screenwriter made her heroine a philosophy teacher (to a class of retirees), so that the different theories she addresses echo her current personal situation. For example, at the very beginning of his affair with Sylvain, we are treated to the impossible object of desire according to Plato.
Other approaches will follow, including that of Spinoza. This is an excellent idea, finely integrated.
Subtle and raw
Another aspect that makes Simple like Sylvain equally irresistible lies in the decision to go against the conventions of romantic comedy in order to better divert and comment on them. The result surprises at every turn.
Take this dinner in Sylvain’s family, where the comments heard are the opposite of those made earlier in that of Sophia (whose mother is played by Micheline Lanctôt, author of the fabulous The handyman, which shares great similarities with this film). In a “classic” romantic comedy, the outcome would be catastrophic at the time, but would later help to unite the lovers. Here, the demonstration turns out to be much more subtle: we are in discomfort, in gnashing of teeth, but in acceptance.
Ah, and, for those who are tempted by the trials of intentions, the filmmaker makes fun (gently) of “intellectuals” as much as of “proles”.
But in short, the catastrophe, since a catastrophe must indeed occur, will occur later, when we do not expect it, thanks to a very dark sequence. As the months pass, it is in fact no longer the wear and tear of the couple that Sophia forms with Xavier that imposes itself, but rather the wear and tear of the passion that consumes Sophia and Sylvain.
The intensity of their relationships can lead to moments of ugliness, between jealousy and degradation. Moreover, Monia Chokri does not fear a break in tone, a technique that she handles brilliantly.
Always the opposite of the dictates of the comic-sentimental genre, Simple like Sylvain, while multiplying the lines of chiseled finesse, is not afraid of being believed. You have to hear some heated exchanges between Sylvain and Sophia… Him, lecherous: “Are you the one who makes you so wet? » She, pragmatic: “You have to believe. »
It’s a notch more daring than the public orgasm simulated by Meg Ryan for the benefit of Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally (When Harry Met Sally).
Outdated and second-rate
Magalie Lépine-Blondeau (The night Laurier Gaudreault woke up) and Pierre-Yves Cardinal (Tom on the farm) are perfectly in tune with the singular nature of the proposition. That’s to say ?
The film has an old-fashioned style, with its palette of predominantly autumnal shades, its pronounced image grain and its camera which swirls around the lovers like Lelouch… In this respect, the film has a kitsch side, but assumed and very second degree: it was embryonic in My brother’s wifeprominently in Baby sitterand now completely successful.
In terms of staging, Simple like Sylvain is the most accomplished work of Monia Chokri (and the great cinematographer André Turpin). The compositions are seductive, often playing magnificent chiaroscuro. In the background, Xavier, abandoned to his fate, is seen at the back of the house through a door frame, while in the foreground, Sophia cries silently on the stairs that lead to the upstairs: isolated in the ambient darkness, each one exists in its own little island of light.
And what about this passage in a gas station where Monia Chokri alternates perspectives like a singer of Brian De Palma: Sylvain stands next to the vehicle, Sophia is seated inside, and their eyes escape before meeting , successively, through a reflection on the door window, in the rearview mirror, then face to face… It’s never dizzying, just virtuoso.
This explains this, Simple like Sylvain arouses the irrepressible desire to be seen again as soon as it is finished. Because, to paraphrase Sophia just after her first carnal escapade with Sylvain: once is not enough.