Amor à Primeira Briga

Arnaud Labrède and his older brother Manu are dealing with their father's death. Manu is trying to keep the family building business afloat. Arnaud is hanging out with his friends who sign him up to wrestle with Madeleine Beaulieu. He starts losing to her and he bites her. He and Manu sell to Madeleine's parents despite her objections. She is a bitter loner and obsessed with joining an elite army unit. She attends a preparation camp and he follows her.

Adèle Haenel delivers a compelling odd-ball character. Kévin Azaïs is a bit too much of a mouth-breather especially early on. However, his character takes a turn at the camp and that's where the movie has the most fun. I love the duo's relationship during the camp and I think the movie could excel by staying there. There is more story to tell in that place. I don't mind the Blue Lagoon detour but it is a bit simple.

I saw this movie with my high school (I'm French, so I apologize if I make any languages mistakes), and really liked it.

The actors really did a great job, and during the whole movie, their acting seemed really natural. The characters have very different points of view on the future and group life. Madeleine is trying to be self-sufficient in expectation of the apocalyptic future she believes in. To Arnaud, future means the end of the summer, and in the first part of the movie, his family takes the decisions for him. Even though, their love-story is believable, and Adèle Haenel and Kevin Azaïs made a great on-screen couple ! Also, the score is really lively and goes well with the movie. This movie is very different of most of the recent French movies, and it's a good thing if it worked, I hope it will stimulate others French directors to make different movies.

A really good first long time feature for Thomas Cailley, and I encourage everyone to see "Love at first fight" ! To me, it doesn't deserve a 8 or more out of 10, but this is a different movie from what we are used to see. Sometimes, this movie is a comedy, or a rom com, but it also is a movie about the army and the survival in a wild place.

One more "Boy Meets Girl" story? Just another Rom-Com? Not really. First things first, you will never prevent boys from meeting girls and the reverse, so there will always be love stories and thank heaven for them when they manage to rise above the clichés and the cheesiness too many of them bathe in. A defect mercifully avoided by this particular affair of the heart. A mere look at the title ("Les Combattants" - literally "The Fighters" -) is an obvious guarantee that you will be spared the stale old exasperating Cha Ba Da Ba Da tale. Actually, neither the characters nor the situation are conventional or predictable. Take our young Romeo for example: Arnaud is a young carpenter who does not show any real passion for his trade. Docile, mild-mannered and easy-going, he takes life as it comes; in other words he still has to find himself. For her part Madeleine, the girl he meets, has little in common with the frail, sensitive Juliet. Three adjectives best qualify her: brusque, burly and nihilistic. Completely out of this world, the horsey lady has an obsession: mastering survival skills in order to... get through the end of the world! As you can see, not the standard Rom-Com, all the more as the stereotypical gender roles are reversed: Miss Headstrong is the dominant one while Mr. Least Line of Resistance yields and follows... at least for a time.

For all the rhetoric, though, this is a love story. Even if it looks just the opposite. Even if it is set in a more and more unusual context as the minutes pass. And it is precisely the odd settings and the crazy story developments that prevent boredom. Unique in its kind "Les combattants' has romance bloom... within the framework of a training session for wannabee paratroopers and, a little later, in the middle of a survival experience in the grip of untamed nature!

Nothing wishy-washy to fear as you can see. On the contrary in the end you will have been told the touchingly serious story of two creatures who attract each other but have to struggle to find who they really are and to make out how they can relate to each other satisfyingly. Another quality of Thomas Cailley and Claude Le Pape's screenplay, lies in the fact the two characters, a bit caricatural at the beginning, evolve in the course of the action and gain in depth. The last added value is the film's interesting examination of what it is like to be young in today's France, a country once prosperous and proud of itself which now seems to have lost its bearings. Both Madeleine and Arnaud, each in their manner, are disoriented and do not know where they are going. A statement that, by extension, can be applied to a big share of French youth and brings the movie a rich sociological touch.

Always where you least expect him, Thomas Cailley succeeds in combining several genres (documentary, comedy, romance, psychological study, army movie, disaster movie) without ever sinking into confusion. So much so that "Les combattants" appears as a unique example of its kind. Well-served by its actors (delusively bland Kevin Azaïs and always under pressure Adèle Haenel), it will surprise and amuse you while giving you - Thank God in a casual way - food for thought.

Arnaud is going to spend his summer working in the family business of making high quality sheds. Then they get a gig at the house of Madeleine's parents and he sort of falls for her.

She is a feisty young woman who is waiting for the apocalypse and just wants to be ready to survive. This also involves her wanting to join the French Army and do all that gruelling training stuff that quite frankly would have me running the other way. The question for Arnaud is how far is he willing to go to win her – apparently ice cold – heart.

This is a sort of comedy, as it has a few comedic moments, but what it really is, is an unconventional love story – as Morrissey wrote 'this one is different because it's us' – and as such it should be hard to empathise with them – yet by dint of chemistry it is quite the opposite. There is a vibrancy to the whole thing that sweeps you along with it.

This is a warm, amusing film, with great direction and acting and you may even learn a few tips on survival – all in all a recommended watch.

I'm a big fan of French films. It's true I haven't seen many of them, but they all had one thing in common: none of them have disappointed me. No matter if we are talking about a comedy, romance, thriller,... they always manage to provide excellent films. Even when the films are about "topics", which is the case of this film...

Summer-Boy-Girl. Sounds familiar right? Not that fast. As a quick recap for this film works, but just for that. You are not going to find here the classical "summer love" story. Weird moments, funny moments, romantic moments, even about-life-reflections moments, the story will keep you engaged from first minute till end. The main two characters are awesome (Madeleine weird-tough-lovely combination rocks). They show up in almost 100% of the scenes, but you never get tired of them. Fantastic work by the main two actors, there was a lot of chemistry between them on film.

This film is not only going to give you a 1h30min of good time, it is also going to provide you a feel-good sensation for the rest of the day. So don't hesitate and give a shoot to this film!