Emmanuelle Bercot won best actress at last year’s Cannes Festival for her turn in this film, which, though disordered and overwrought, has things to say about the stubborn way we cling to unpromising romantic relationships.
She deserves the gong. Vincent Cassel, always happy to fling furniture about the place, is equally good as the object of her affection and cause of her unease. Still, it’s never quite clear why Bercot’s Tony sticks with Cassel’s solipsistic restaurateur Georgio for quite so long. People do, I guess.
We begin with Tony recovering from a skiing accident that might not be entirely an accident. We then flashback to find the couple meeting in a club some 10 years earlier. Initial cuddles are untroubled – they usually are – but there are ominous pointers for those who choose to look.
A troubled ex-girlfriend, still lurking about the restaurant, doesn’t exactly advertise Georgio’s stability. Before too long he’s doing terrible things and Tony’s falling apart inside.
In her third film, the French director Maïwenn returns to the technique she used for her fitful Polisse. An outline is written and the cast improvise around that structure. In the case of Mon Roi, this means, for the most part, that they devise their own arguments.
The film works best when talking us through the early stages of the relationship. The cast discover those odd triggers that fire passion and highlight them to convincing effect. (Obviously, it’s a little easier to believe in love at first sight when it happens between people as easy on the eye as Bercot and Cassel.) The bawling and weeping in the later stages doesn’t feel quite so convincingly nuanced, but Cassel is so visibly engaged in the act of being a jerk that the film rarely flags. His narcissism is endless.
His impatience with ordinary manners is infuriating. Claire Mathon shoots it all in lovely shades. The British composer Stephen Warbeck scores it very tastefully.
If watching beautiful people fall apart beautifully floats your boat, then Mon Roi will do very well, thank you.
