J'me sens pas belle

One of the better French films this year, a refreshingly funny comedy about Fanny and Paul, two people in their mid-thirties and their not entirely straightforward way of trying to start a relationship.

This is strictly a two-character movie (if you don't count the voices of the annoying couple upstairs), and all of it takes place on just one evening and the following morning. This may seem a very minimalist concept to begin with, and it certainly wouldn't work with comedians of a smaller calibre that Marina Foïs and Julien Boisselier, but the two of them excel in their roles as somewhat quirky, but still totally believable and entirely likable thirty-somethings who had their disappointments in relationships and now don't seem to know what to do with one another.

It's this interplay of one character taking the initiative and the other one instantly trying to wiggle his/her way out of it (and ten minutes later vice versa) and the clumsiness with which things happen or don't happen, plus the deadpan humour that makes this movie so successful.

Don't expect a movie with a lot of depth and substance. Expect to meet two endearing characters with whom you can almost instantly identify, expect witty dialogues and humour that will never sink below a certain level (even when the condom gets caught in the guitar strings), expect to laugh a lot and to cry a little.

Certainly worth seeing. 8/10.