Summary
Successful adaptation, with literary breath and Proustian atmosphere, of Gide's novel about certain forbidden loves in the Paris of the 1920s.
Review:
Based on André Gide's novel of the same name, the film follows in the footsteps and conflicting loves of two teenage friends, Bernard (Jules-Angelo Bigarnet) and Oliver (Maxime Berger) and their relationships with adults. The former leaves the family home to later bond with the latter's uncle and writer, Edouard (Melvil Poupaud), while Olivier, enters the publishing world early, associating himself with the noble dilettante Robert de Passavant (Patrick Mille).
The director Benoit Jacquot tactfully tackles the controversial subject within the book: "forbidden" homosexual relationships and loves between adults and adolescents (with their burden of disagreement, jealousy, hope and depression), within the framework of a time where, however , a certain Parisian bourgeoisie and even family environments spoiled them or at least turned a blind eye.
The film makes an opportune use of the first person of the off-screen or epistolary literary story to express what the characters do not dare to say to each other and uses correct ellipsis to suggest or avoid showing certain situations (I did not read the novel and I cannot know if it exhibits the same modesty). A certain subplot is reminiscent of Volker Schlöndorf's Young Törless, an inescapable reference (based on a novel by Robert Musil published in 1906).
The tone, story, and meticulous period reconstruction of 1920s Paris immerse the viewer in a successful, but by no means, pretentious Proustian novel atmosphere in a film that sports tight performances by its entire cast.
