As someone who was drawn to the French language as a child, without any family or friend being an agent of that introduction, I feel I am a destined French lover from some spiritual lens.

Today I watched the movie ‘French Lover’, a breezy romantic tale between an actor and a chef, who, in spite of their wealth and fame differences, find the right kind of love in each other. There are so many romantic tales showing love between opposites of this nature; I feel it is always a bit oversimplified. A real-life celebrity of today will rarely pay attention to someone below their monetary level. I see how each side is calculative about the income levels, even on the very ordinary level of society. Yet, I appreciate cinema reconnecting people to ideas that are meaningful, when love is the only merit for love – it doesn’t have to be strictly controlled by status equality.

This film didn’t quite capture my heart as other French movies I have watched like L’Arnacoeur (the Heartbreaker), Jeux Enfants (Love me if you Dare) and Les Emotifs Anonymes (Romantics Anonymous). Those were simply masterpieces from the French cinema. But it won’t be fair to expect every movie to achieve that high a pedestal.

Nonetheless, I liked the personality of the two characters in this film – Abel and Marion. Abel is charismatic and his friendliness makes him a people’s favorite. Marion is straight forward and real while appearing graceful and pretty.

The tensions the couple deals with, of aligning their starry and simple lives, while dealing with the baggage of their expired relations, is probably what a lot of stars face. The non-celebrity ends up accomodating more of the star’s wishes, but if the end result is the star appreciating the worth of the non-celebrity, it can be a win-win, as is the happy ending in this movie. Hope it works like that in real too for those wishing for pure love 🩷