Sick Product of a Sick System

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

NOT MY TYPE is the story of a mismatched romance between a Parisian philosopher, exiled to teach in quiet Arras, and the sunny single- mother hairdresser he meets there. At first it seems like an amusing romcom about opposites attracting, but then the jokes stop. Then it seems like it might become a bittersweet, realistic love story full of regrets and misunderstandings, but then it runs out of ideas. At a certain point the relationship simply shudders to a halt and we're left to watch the same scenes over and over again (he endlessly reads to her from classic French literature but it doesn't matter because nothing seems to change). It doesn't help that the film is not much shy of two hours when it could easily have been 90 minutes. The leads are good, the setting unusual, the camera-work excellent and it benefits from being laugh-out-loud French (the philosopher even wears a black turtleneck sweater) but its failure to progress or come to a real conclusion leaves more questions than answers.

Lucas Belvaux is clearly not particular where his plots come from nor has he any desire to attempt originality so this film may only be judged on the performances. It would take far too much time and use up far too much space to name-check all the films dealing with relationships across social and/or intellectual divides so I'll restrict myself to just two, Marion Vernoux's outstanding Rien a faire in which ill-educated housewife Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and recently redundant business executive Patrick Dell'Isola meet at a job centre and embark on a relationship despite both being married, and, much closer to home, Claude Goretta's La Dentelliere in which Isabelle Huppert, works in a hairdressing salon and meets student Yves Benyton. Here Emilie Dequenne is the hairdresser who meets Philosopher and Lecturer Loic Corbery who, in the course of their relationship, gives her books to read not least Doesteovsky's The Idiot, which might be attempting to tell her something. Leaving the silver screen behind for a moment we can find here echoes of both Scott Fitzgerald who provided his lover Sheila Graham with a reading list and Artie Shaw who did the same for one of his wives, Ava Gardner. Should we seek a counterpart for the emotionally cold Corbery we need look no further than Claude Sautet's Un Coeur en Hiver in which Daniel Auteuils' violin maker/restorer was very much on a par with Manu Beart's classical musician socially but light years away in terms of emotional warmth. In spite of all this 'borrowing' Lucas Belvaux is almost sure to reap the rewards of Emily Dequennes brilliant performance with the Comedy Francaise's Corberry only a whisker behind. Brownie points too for setting the whole thing in unfashionable Arras where the bring the sidewalks in at 4 p.m. Performance-led and all the better for it this is a must-see.

Very good film with excellent actors. However, some scenes deserved to be more developed. Why do we know so little about the books Clement wrote, and about his new book "Le nouvel Eros" ? Why is it we cannot throw a connection between the way Clement reflects on love in his own life and the way he theorizes it in his books?Also, the main characters of the film remain unaltered. We don't see Clement evolve from his lack of emotional response and skepticism. We don't see how Jenifer tried to cope her sense of romanticism and ideal with the profile of Clement. We only know Jenifer went away abruptly. No final explanation, no interrelations between universes that keep on moving the same line straight until the end.

I love this bittersweet feature telling the usual and so realistic love story between a man and a woman. Emilie Dequesne is terrific, as the romantic Young woman, so idealistic for the man she seeks and falls in love with. The Young actor is also very good. The characters are all outstanding, so the study of them all, the way of describing this story that so many of us have already been through. One day or another. I highly recommend this film, this perfect example of what french movie can give us. Lucas Belvaux is also a director whose I Watch all the movies. I am rarely disappointed.