The war of snobs versus slobs gets a French-Canadian update in The Nature of Love, a film so light you might miss its shrewd insights into human nature. Monia Chokri, the film’s writer and director, has deep sympathy for her characters, but she also has no problem skewering them. Sometimes the point of view can be comic, to the point where it recalls the work of Woody Allen, while at other times it can be devastating. Over two hours, Chokri argues that no level of sophistication can hinder our capacity for self-delusion, just as blue-collar people are not inherently more “authentic” than their cosmopolitan counterparts. None of this is especially new, and yet the carefully controlled performances imbue the conflict with genuine wit and passion.
Chokri starts with the urban elites, a passionate dinner conversation about philosophy and the possibility of innate human values. Equally lively and pretentious, the dinner party settles nothing and instead establishes a space where these characters are most comfortable. The camera wanders and the scene lingers, establishing credibility while never quite becoming tedious. We eventually follow Sophie (Magalie Lépine-Blondeau) and her partner, Xavier (Francis-William Rhéaume), childless intellectuals who are in their early 40s. They are not married, and they sleep in separate rooms: the traditions of marriage and a marriage bed are simply too bourgeois for them.
The following morning, Sophie goes to her chalet, a lakeside summer house she and Xavier just bought, to assess its state of disrepair. She meets Sylvain (Pierre-Yves Cardinal), a smart but uneducated contractor, who is the voice of doom – the joint needs a lot of work. Sophie freaks out, of course, but Sylvain reassures her via a trip to the bar. Mutual attraction is inevitable, and by that evening Sophie and Sylvain are fucking on the living room floor. Part of Sophie’s attraction is Sylvain’s language: yes, he is a handsome man who works with his hands, but he also describes his lust in simple, brutish terms. No one wants an intellectual in the sack, so Sophie begins an affair.
At first, you might think The Nature of Love is all about Sophie coming to her senses. That would be too easy for Chokri, and so she raises the stakes by having Sophie leave Xavier. If the film’s early section is passionate, with sex scenes that avoid nudity but are hardly chaste, then the long middle is where Chokri reveals her satiric critique. Sure, Sophie and Sylvain love each other, but the honeymoon phase can only last so long, and there comes a time when the things you overlook curdle into genuine grievances. Sophie needles Sylvain’s faults, and he (correctly) feels hurt when she tries to correct him. These slights unfold in plausible ways, like a dinner party or simple conversation that turns into a full-on argument. Cardinal and Lépine-Blondeau, both stalwarts of modern French-Canadian cinema, find realistic notes for characters who could have easily veered into easy stereotypes.
This is more of an observation than a criticism, but the subtitles create a nagging feeling that subtext is being lost in translation. Unless you are well-versed in the differences between city and country folk in Quebec, then there are things in The Nature of Love that you will miss. The translation of certain words is also strange: Sylvain’s French is not perfect, and he uses slang that’s translated into nonsense like “whazzit” that no English speaker actually uses. References to French-Canadian culture, high and low, also leave more questions than answers. Still, the situations are universal enough that the subtext is clear, even when we do not necessarily understand all the layers that inform it.
The original French title for The Nature of Love is Simple Comme Sylvain, or “Simple Like Sylvain.” Aside from the alliteration, it is a better title for this material because Sophie – through her affair and new love – thinks she has her answer. Maybe the American distributor worried the connotation of “simple” is too negative. Either way, Chokri thoroughly disabuses the idea that anyone’s answer to life can be a person. Love is a constant affirmation, not a fleeting moment of excitement, and on a long enough timeline, that sheen always gives way to more of a grind. Sophie thinks Sylvain is so different from her regular life that she must be the exception, so the film uses exacting detail to show us – and her – that not that much about her is exceptional.
Chokri carefully avoids the misanthropic streak that her central message could easily invite. She likes all her characters, including the emasculated Xavier and the brutish Sylvain, enough to take pity on them. Rather than inviting us to ridicule Sophie, The Nature of Love warns us that anyone – even you – could fall into the same trap as her hapless, yearning hero.
Photo courtesy of Music Box Films
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