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On Va S’aimer

On Va S’aimer is a perfectly delightful little romantic musical comedy with adultery, shenanigans, bittersweet moments, and most importantly, a happy ending. The musical numbers are hokey French pop songs, bad enough to have come out of Les Chansons D’Amour, but not quite silly enough to be in 8 Femmes. Dancers dressed in black magically appear for each song and vanish at the end of each one.

On Va S’aimer is the story of two best friends, Laurent and François, each in happy relationships, with Camille and Élodie, respectively, who end up falling for the other one’s girlfriend, and each carrying on an affair with the object of their desire while all still in their initial relationships. The first time Élodie and Laurent meet up surreptitiously, they keep telling each other that “they shouldn’t” and continue to recite the same hilarious line, which gets all the more funny, when they say it while mid-climax.

Élodie soon leaves François to carry on an affair with “another man”, though no one else knows this “other man” is the practically-married Laurent who is still madly in love with Camille, but decidedly confused. François is torn up about it, and hilarity ensues when François hires a private detective who catches Élodie and Laurent on tape and Laurent must convince François to throw the tape away before watching it. When Laurent brings Élodie up to his parents’ cabin for a passionate weekend getaway, he borrows the key from his sister, who knows he is about to cheat on his wife, and provides him with the perfect romantic getaway: a cabin with no power and no water, which also happens to be under construction. But apparently this infidelity was just what the relationships needed to get back on track again – and everything ends merrily.

Perhaps one of my favourite characters, however, is the dental hygienist who speaks in lists. Laurent tries to set her up with François; Laurent and Camille go on a double date with Francois and the hygienist. On the date, the hygienist talks about how she loves long walks - on streets, on avenues, and in the park – and pasta – linguini, spaghetti, rigotini. When she finds out the François also likes long walks and pasta, she is convinced she has met her soul mate. After all, how often do you meet someone with so much in common?

On Va S’aimer kept me smiling, giddy, and genuinely laughing out loud, the whole way through. Every time a musical number was about to come on, I both cringed and laughed with joy. The characters are beautiful and charismatic and even though they may hurt one another, they do it with a song-and-dance, so we know that no hearts are getting irreparably broken. The film is smart, fun, and I could probably watch it multiple times, and it would still leave wonderful joy in my heart.

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The 11^th Annual Cinefranco Film Festival, is a celebration of French Cinema with films from France, Belgium, Canada, and other French-speaking countries. This year’s festival runs daily from March 28^th – April 6th. Most films show at the Royal Cinema on College St. For schedules and locations, check out the Cinefranco website.

Stay tuned for more reviews of films at the festival, as well as reviews of films still to come at this year’s festival.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 10:58 pm and is filed under Events, Film. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.