French cinema and love triangles cannot quite go wrong, especially if it has Golshifte Farahani as its central character. Farahani who is serving a prison sentence for unspecified crime is allowed to work during the day; she tries to ward off the entreaties of a film extra who met her at the sandwich kiosk where she works; so, the desperate lover engages the help of his friend – a gas station attendant and aspiring writer, to persuade her – and the inevitable happens... What ensues is a charming tale of her efforts to negotiate the attention of the two males and the subsequent jealousy that erupts between the two friends. At stake is the extension of her prison term because she fails to turn up one night: the three of them go on an unplanned, nocturnal escapade that would change them irrevocably.
Louis Garrel, a veteran and popular actor who plays the friend marks his arrival as a director with this heady film and impresses with his freewheeling, casual style that defines the spirit of most French cinema dealing with young lovers.
‘LES DEUX AMIS’ now playing on MUBI.
Ranjan Das is a Mumbai based filmmaker and faculty.