Lily-Rose Depp pursues Louis Garrel in ‘A Faithful Man’ - Los Angeles Times
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Review: ‘A Faithful Man’ provides a sexy morsel of French romance

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A tart, seriocomic morsel of desire and doubt, Louis Garrel’s “A Faithful Man” is the French actor-filmmaker’s second examination of triangulated romance after his debut feature as a director, “Two Friends.”

It starts with a scene of peculiarly deadpan devastation: Parisian journalist Abel (Garrel) calmly accepting the news that his live-in love, Marianne (Laetitia Casta), is pregnant with the child of his best friend and is leaving him. Ten years later, Marianne, with a precocious son (Joseph Engel) in tow, is back in Abel’s life. But so is the now-grown sister of Abel’s friend, Eva (a vibratingly funny Lily-Rose Depp), whose girlhood crush on Abel has turned into what she sees as a reachable conquest.

Garrel, who wrote the screenplay with art-house elder statesman Jean-Claude Carrière, knows how to coast on the classic appeal of a sexy, sardonic French relationship three-hander while tweaking the emotional contours with a gimmick here (narration from all three leads), a twist there (is someone a murderer?), and the kind of third-act romantic gambit that finishes everything with the right amount of blushing, humorous suspense.

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The simplistic heart wisdom about the road not traveled isn’t as fun as the journey, however, which — at a friendly hour-and-a-quarter — satisfies in the manner of a brisk short story. Casta’s wry, enigmatic and fiercely intelligent modern-woman sensuality, however, is the one element in this scenario that could burst free of Garrel’s bite-size architecture and be worthy of epic treatment.

'A Faithful Man'

In French with English subtitles

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes

Playing: Starts Friday, Laemmle Royal, West L.A.

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