Movie review: One-sided love, one-dimensional script in 1er Amour

1er Amour

Starring: Lo?c Esteves, Marianne Fortier, Macha Grenon, Beno?t Gouin, Sylvie Boucher, Pierre-Luc Brillant

Directed by: Guillaume Sylvestre

Running time: 80 minutes

Parental guidance: sex scenes, drug use

Opens with English subtitles on Friday, June 21 at: Forum cinema. Opens in French on Friday, June 21 at: Beaubien, Brossard, Deux Montagnes, Longueuil, Pont Viau, Quartier Latin, St-Eustache cinemas.

MONTREAL - The frustrating thing about 1er Amour is that it has so much unfulfilled potential. There?s the possibility of a really good movie about adolescent obsessions, about unrequited love, about first love.

Freely adapted from First Love, the 1860 novella by Russian author Ivan Turgenev, 1er Amour has a promising starting point. It?s that oldest of ideas: a boy falls big-time for an older girl and is devastated when his affections are not reciprocated.

But it?s just too thinly sketched here. This short feature feels kind of unfinished, leaving us wanting more, and not in a good way.

There are some very good performances in the film, most notably from Beno?t Gouin, who is perfect as Fran?ois, a father with a wandering eye. Gouin is one fine character actor, who can be slightly twisted and somehow still charming like nobody?s business. Macha Grenon is also excellent as his wife, Marie, as are Marianne Fortier and Sylvie Boucher as the daughter and mother, respectively, who are renting the cottage next door to Fran?ois and Marie?s shack.

But ? and this is a major-league, game-changing ?but? ? Lo?c Esteves is simply not that convincing as Antoine, the boy at the centre of this drama. The film is all about Antoine ? the story?s told from his point of view ? and the young actor just doesn?t convey the emotional range needed to bring this thing to life.

Thirteen-year-old Antoine and his parents arrive at their cottage on an isolated island somewhere in the Quebec countryside, and very quickly the kid is mighty intrigued by the rather attractive 17-year-old girl, Anna, just across the way. He?s smitten, but she hardly notices. She has other things on her mind, like drinking, smoking weed and getting cosy with her boyfriend.

It turns out that Anna?s mother, Genevi?ve, is an old pal of Fran?ois, but that?s just another plot strand that?s not built upon in a particularly meaningful way. There?s a development late in the film that?s quite the twist, but yet again, first-time feature writer-director Guillaume Sylvestre ? who made the cool foodie documentary Durs ? cuire, about chefs Normand Laprise and Martin Picard ? doesn?t really pick up the ball and run with it.

It?s a twist that could have ricocheted off in any number of directions, but Sylvestre doesn?t follow any of those options. Instead, he ends 1er Amour just minutes later, creating that rare film where I would have liked another 20 minutes of action (as opposed to, say, Man of Steel, which could have easily had a half-hour of explosions lopped off with no one noticing).

It?s the second straight first feature from a local writer-director ? after Sarah pr?f?re la course ? suffering from a thin screenplay that could have used a little more hard labour.

Source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Movie+review+sided+love+dimensional+script/8553403/story.html

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