Jean-Claude climbs the stairs of an old building, steps are heavy as if carrying that heavy routine and a few past burdens. An African woman opens the door and realizes her resident ways are numbered, tears are her only signs of protest. Jean-Claude delivers a few comforting words but we gather it's the way he usually handles those who don't insult him from the get-go.
Cut to the title: "Not Here to Be Loved".
Indeed, he's a bailiff. Thirty years of professional neutrality kept all the overwhelming frustrations of his life from showing in his stern face. Patrick Chesnais rarely smiles and yet this is not a one-note performance but a variety of emotions contained in one expression built as a rempart against depression. Only during his solitary moments does he steam off a few tantrums. The man refuses to appear vulnerable, not out of false pride but to preserve himself from a breakdown that would make his life edifice collapse.
This is my sixth Stéphane Brizé film and the first without Vincent Lindon, but if Lindon plays a proletarian as convincingly as a CEO, there's something in Chesnais' measured expressions and not-too handsome looks that brings something unique about his character. He exudes authority and severity in a way that places him both as the operator and victim of his emotions. Brizé shows the man interacting with his father and his son, so witnessing the chain of command hints at a need for love he never dares admit.
His father is a grumpy man played by George Wilson, one of the retirement home employees tells Jean-Claude he made a young nurse weep. The man is perpetually dissatisfied with his son despite him being the only one to visit him. Even bringing him another brand of chocolate infuriates him, that they taste better is beside the point. It's a love-and-hate relationship whose only tender moment occurs when Jean-Claude gets in the car and his father peeps at him. Out of misguided pride, the father also never displays loves and would go as far as telling his son he threw his youth tennis trophies.
Pride has spared the son (Cyril Couton) but for the worst. He joined his father's office and proves that self-confidence isn't hereditary. We gather that the son lived in the towering shadow of a father and admired him in a submissive, spineless way. This is a family gangrened by toxic fear of disappointing and where soft feelings are signs of weaknesses. The result is cold and neutral relationships with anger as the only sincere emotion. Neither Jean-Claude or his father are here to be loved while the son fears not to be loved at all.
But Jean-Claude has heart problems, real ones. His doctor (Stéphan Wojtowicz) recommends to start exercising but tennis is out of question. It leads up to that facing building where he kept peeping over tango lessons. Jean-Claude starts dancing and if his heart isn't there, it doesn't matter, it's never been anywhere anyway. He meets Françoise (Anne Consigny), a beautiful and younger woman, courted (harassed actually) by a trainee (Olivier Claverie). Ironically, it's Jean-Claude's quiet mind-his-own-business demeanor that catches her eye. They meet regularly, one night he drives her home and the ice doesn't take much time to melt. Why should a taciturn be disagreeable?
Brizé has an economy of scenes that always pays off. His process consists of shooting as many little scenes as the script provides to get a better range of selection: each scene says something about someone, that says something about another. The glimpses we get on Françoise' life are insightful: she lives with her fiancé, the archetypal frustrated teacher with artistic dreams (Lionel Abelanski). He doesn't care about tango lessons (actually rehearsals for their marriage) and emotionally slides over a cycle of inspiration and self-deprecation. He's the quintessential self-centered schmuck who can't love for he can't even like himself..
Françoise seems like the opposite of Jean-Claude: open, smiling but she's entrapped in an ersatz of happiness, she can communicate with her sister or mother but only within their approval. The mother enjoys her position as a wedding planner and the sister warns her against that fling with Jean-Claude. The perfect man doesn't exist so better stick to a nice guy, buy a house, have children and then allow yourself a few adventures (as she did). It's a cynical view supported by a few family scenes where Françoise can't find her place in the masquerade. Incapable to disguise her feelings, maybe she found in tango an antidote against emotional numbness.
The film is the story of two outcasts who find in each other an oasis where they can be themselves without it being a social burden. As the story flows, many characters such as the father, the son, even the secretary (Anne Benoit) reveal deeper truths that converge toward one idea: the illusion of love leads to self-hating, the illusion of stability to mental instability, and the illusion of strength hide the weakest hearts. I hate to admit that I related a lot to the son and the fiancé but the film taught me that not desperately trying to be loved can be the best way to truly earn it... in a scene where the African woman is forced to leave, Jean-Claude dryly rebuffs two security guys who kept laughing. It's one thing not to be loved, but the point is not to be hated.
I called Brizé the French Ken Loach but I'm starting to admire his wit and sincerity for his less 'social' films, I wouldn't call him the French Mike Leigh, but a director whose magic is to shoot realistic slices of life to better highlight the illusions hidden beneath and paint something as complex as 'human contact' whether at work, or family, or love... That he wrote the film with a woman (Juliette Salles) might indicate that writing about love is like love itself, or tango: better at two.
