Plaire, aimer et courir vite (2018)
Directed by Christophe Honoré

Film Review

For his twelfth feature, Plaire, aimer et courir vite (Sorry Angel), acclaimed auteur filmmaker Christophe Honoré draws heavily on his own experiences and delivers an understated portrayal of an ill-fated gay love affair that resonates with warmth and genuine human feeling.  A somewhat slighter work than Robin Campillo's much-lauded 120 battements par minute, the recipient of the Jury Grand Prize at Cannes in 2017, it has no political or moral axe to grind.  Instead, what it offers is an intelligently scripted tale of impossible love, set against the AIDS pandemic that so strongly marked the director's youth.

Even though the film was honoured with the Prix Louis-Delluc (the film equivalent of the Goncourt literary prize) in 2018, Plaire, aimer et courir vite has somewhat less in the way of narrative substance, emotional power and visual flair than some of Honoré's earlier work, notably his stylish musical hymn to love Les Chansons d'amour (2007).  There is a degree of complacency on both the writing and directing fronts which prevents the film from having quite the impact it deserves, given the calibre of the performers and the potential that Honoré's tragicomic semi-autobiographical story holds.

That said, this latest Honoré reflection on love and life is a meticulously crafted piece of auteur cinema that explores the inadequacies of a romantic attachment with commendable honesty and a surprising amount of good humour.  Lead actors Vincent Lacoste and Pierre Deladonchamps make an effective contrast as the ill-matched protagonists who are drawn into a fraught romance by conflicting desires.  Whereas the former, a student in his early twenties, is propelled by the impetuosity of youth and its accompanying hormonal surges into a reckless bout of hedonism, the latter, a 40-something writer, wants nothing more than the consolation of a last fling before AIDS takes its toll on him.

In his most convincing screen portrayal to date, Pierre Deladonchamps (first revealed in Alain Guiraudie's eerie psycho-sexual thriller L'Inconnu du lac) conveys the anguish of a man weighed down by personal failure and his lack of readiness for his encroaching death.  This provides a poignant counterpoint to the sizzling vitality that Lacoste brings to the screen with his customary boyish élan.  Both characters can be read as manifestations of how the film's 48-year-old author sees himself at the present time and in his carefree youth - seeming opposites governed by the same overriding impulse to live life as fully as possible.

Circling around the two leads, and providing some additional human interest to a slender melodrama that might easily have run out of steam, there are a host of secondary characters representing other facets of that tragic amour impossible.  Of these, the most welcome and convincingly drawn is the journalist neighbour who has an obvious crush on Deladonchamps, played by Denis Podalydès - his is arguably the best performance in the film (one that earned him a César nomination in 2019).  There is also a self-pitying ex-lover (Thomas Gonzales) who returns begging for support as he succumbs to the final stages of his AIDS-related illness, and a sympathetic hustler (Quentin Thébault) who comforts Deladonchamps is his moments of nocturnal soul-searching.

Running to comfortably over two hours, Plaire, aimer et courir vite is slightly overlong for the story it has to tell and would have benefited from some judicious pruning, particularly in its protracted final third where you feel Honoré is merely treading water before unleashing the pretty unsurprising denouement on us.  The film doesn't quite live up to expectations but by imparting his own amorous experiences so openly the writer-director gives us a privileged insight into his own conflicted feelings about love.  Again, you are impressed by Honoré's candour but you still feel he has some way to go before he achieves his true potential as a filmmaker and chronicler of the human condition.

Film Synopsis

In 1993, Arthur Prigent is a twenty-year-old student living in the Breton town of Rennes.  Jacques Tondelli is a successful writer who lives in Paris with his young son.  Whilst attending a literary event in his honour in Rennes, Jacques sneaks away to a movie theatre and his eyes are drawn to the good-looking Arthur.  They get talking and agree to meet up again later.  Not long after this first encounter, Arthur moves to Paris and sets out to lure Jacques into a full-blown love affair.

Despite their strong mutual attraction, it is apparent that both men are ill-suited for one another.  Jacques is HIV-positive and fears that his life is about to be cut short, so he is reluctant to commit to a long-term relationship.  Arthur has never experienced true love before and he sees in Jacques a heavensent opportunity to experience the first great passion of his life.  Sooner or later, at least one of the two lovers is bound to get hurt...