Simple comme Sylvain

Placing the ambivalence of love at the heart of her third feature film SIMPLE COMME SYLVAIN, Canadian actor-director-writer Monia Chokri masterfully seduces us with a witty, intriguing romance bursting with energy, inventiveness and delicious complexity. Sophia, a philosophy scholar who is in a ten-year relationship with bourgeois intellectual Xavier, meets handsome carpenter Sylvain and they unexpectedly fall in love. As they give in to their passion, their lives are turned upside down. This potentially mundane plot line becomes a whirlwind of impeccably written dialogues, amusing wordplay and sharp meta-textual references where social stereotypes, class struggles and couple dynamics are all sifted through. The director’s skill in writing and staging this film is as self-evident as its protagonists’ love. The sultry chemistry between them is brilliantly captured, while the sex scenes are perfectly in tune with a female perspective. There is something delightfully baroque in the film’s compelling pace, based on a parade of encounters and the characters’ perky banter, that would be unthinkable without the cast’s unique performances. Chokri’s film is as funny and cruel, tender and melancholic, hopeful and deceitful as life itself. (Maria Giovanna Vagenas)

In the presence of Monia Chokri on October 29.

Monia Chokri: LA FEMME DE MON FRÈRE (2018), BABYSITTER (2022)