Writer-director Caroline Vignal’s rom-com adventure originally earned the pastoral marquee Antoinette dans les Cévennes; American arthouse audiences are lured with the more suggestive My Donkey, My Lover & I. Loosely inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1897 book Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, this picturesque Journey of Self-Discovery is grating by any name. The details sound like absurd domestic tragedy, but the cloying tone dooms its pandering craft to the level of French Hallmark fare.
We meet schoolteacher Antoinette (Laure Calamy) changing into her outfit for the class pageant to celebrate the end of the school year. Already we see her sense of propriety is off; she half-heartedly hides behind a screen in the back of her classroom, but not enough so that a young boy can’t help but catch sight of teacher’s ass. When the pageant begins, teach, who takes her vocal solo with maybe too much gusto, seems to want to draw some of the attention from her kids anyway. In more ways than one: she’s having an affair with Vladimir (Benjamin Lavernhe), whose daughter is in Antoinette’s class. Teacher was looking forward to getting away with Vladimir, but instead he has to go with his wife and daughter on a weeklong hike through the Cévennes to follow the route taken by Stevenson and a donkey. Antoinette has the bright idea to take the same journey herself. The last minute trip costs her nearly 900 Euros, and the honor of sharing her journey with Patrick, a stubborn but faithful donkey.
Does hilarity ensue? Ooh la la! Clearly, Antoinette is as stubborn as the donkey; Patrick is an animal that refuses to compromise with this inexperienced new traveler; Antoinette is a grown woman chasing a married man across rural France. Who’s the real ass? There’s a lot going on here: class privilege; human folly in the sight of natural beauty; a desecration of the landscape. One could generously look at My Donkey, My Lover & I as a satire of horrible French mores, Patrick the donkey looking on uncomprehendingly at the stupid things humanity does. And in his way, the donkey teaches Antoinette that there’s more to life than getting down; as she proceeds on her hike, she starts to tell her problems to Patrick, who may be better for her than any human in her life.
So Antoinette’s journey is a journey to herself, and she can only get there by letting nature take its course. Simple enough, right? The problem is, for the most part, this timeless conflict between human and nature plays out like a Werner Herzogian rom-com-cum-feature length Benny Hill sketch. Watch Antoinette struggle to get Patrick to move; soak in the beautiful scenery; watch a young family barely keep it together. There are moments when Matei Bratescot’s score seems like Popol Vuh lite, but the music degenerates into a queasy saccharine charm (take the ukulele—please); we can at least be thankful that the delightful chase scene didn’t resort to “Yakety Sax.”
With a heroine only slightly less annoying (and just as supposedly delightful) as that of a certain Greta Gerwig-Noah Baumbach trifle, you could call this one Frances Hee-Haw. And as with that grating art-house fave, there’s some 11th-hour growth here as Antoinette kind of faces her demons. But the road to self-awareness is paved with too much cringe.
Photo courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment
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