Film Reviews

Love Like Poison

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• Details: France / 78mins (16).

Taking its name from a Serge Gainsbourg song, Love Like Poison is tough to nail down; that is usually a compliment, as this reviewer likes when a film is its own animal, but not here. Katel Quillévéré's debut seems unsure what it wants to do or say and ends up with neither. The head-turning performance from newcomer Clara Augarde, and her earnest support, save the day, however.
During a spring break in Breton, fourteen-year-old Anna (Augarde) is experiencing her first romance with altar boy Pierre (Youen Leboulanger-Gorvil) just as her mother, Jeanne (Lio), is in the throes of the ruin of hers with Anna's father, Jean (Thierry Neuvic). Both are staying with Jean's sickly father while Jean continues his affair with his new, and younger, lover. Anna is a religious girl who feels guilty about her changing body and the effect she has begun to have on men. As her confirmation approaches, she turns to the local priest, Francois (Stefano Cassetti), who also happened to have a teenage fling with her mother, for guidance.
I've really struggled for a synopsis here because Katel Quillévéré's is a very wishy-washy affair. The director raises the theme of the pleasures of the flesh versus spirituality but fails to follow through on it. This is synonymous with the film - her mother's caustic advice to her daughter (like never telling a man her insecurities about her body) is brought up with it having an expected effect on her daughter's burgeoning romance but it too never crops up again.
An obvious influence here is Claire Denis: the slow-moving pace, the observational tone, the fact that it takes an age to get to the point (and the point still being quite elusive by the close) - even at a slim seventy-eight minutes. Love Like Poison is a stark example of a director finding their feet with their first film - hopefully Quillévéré will tighten up her story-telling for her next outing and not go down the dull, meandering route of Denis.

Review by Gavin Burke