Marie-Jo et ses 2 amours

The 2002 film 'Marie-Jo et ses 2 amours' explores the common theme of a love triangle between a woman is in love with two men. Marie-Jo played by Ariane Ascaride is married to Daniel played by Jean-Pierre Darroussin, and she loves him, but is also in love with Marco, played by Gérard Meylan. Throughout the entire movie she oscillates between these two men, and can't choose.

The story is weaved in Marseille with many nude scenes as well as maritime sea pictures. Mary-Jo is torn apart by her love, feels utterly guilty towards her husband and daughter, and eventually discloses the affair to her husband. Shortly after she leaves her husband and goes to live with Marco. However guilt and remorse bring her back to her husband who tells her that he would not be able to share her with Marco.

The movie builds up slowly towards the unknown question of how the love triangle will end. The secret of who is Mary-Jo's true love is revealed in the end, when Mary-Jo and Daniel take their boat to the water. Daniel has an accident bangs his head and falls into the water. Mary-Jo jumps to the rescue but they both sink down.

And Mary-Jo does not let go of Daniel's hand. Perhaps a declaration of her true love, and final choice.

If Marie-Jo doesn't quite have it all she has a reasonable facsimile; happily married in her mid forties, still having great and regular six with her self-employed builder husband, for whom she does the accounts and who is as devoted to her as she is to him. A non-demanding job on the side ferrying patients to and from hospital appointments, a nice, well-appointed house, a gifted and bright daughter studying Law and herself in a stable and loving relationship. What more could she want? Well, nothing ... on paper. So why, given all these assets, can't she stop, after a 12 month clandestine affair, seeing Marco, a harbor pilot, who she loves as deeply as she does Daniel, her husband, and with whom she has equally great and equally regular sex. Welcome to the Marseilles of Marseilles-born Robert Guediguian, where nothing happens ... all at once. This guy has created and developed his own repertory company and, like that other great regional specialist Marcel Pagnol, returns again and again to his roots but not to flaunt the tourist side of Marseilles (as filmmakers are wont to do with Paris), merely to show the soft underbelly. His real-life partner Ariane Ascaride has never been more beguiling than she is here and the movie is punctuated by Ascaride smiles that light up the screen and, for the time you are watching, rival those of Hepburn (BOTH Hepburns actually) and Audrey (Amalie) Tatou. Once again she is more than ably supported by Guediguian stalwarts Jean-Pierre Darroussin (who may have it written into his contract that he gets to dance every time he goes to bat - catch him in 'Un air de famille' and you'll see what I mean) as Daniel and Gerard Meylan (the Marius of 'Marius et Jeanette') as Marco the pilot. Mid-life crises are not new, neither are mid-life affairs, but whereas the couple in 'Brief Encounter' were terribly well-behaved and kept a stiff-upper lip whilst enduring the torment of middle-aged longing, the French menage a trois here let it all hang out. The problem is that given the way Guediguian has elected to go with this story there's no real way to resolve it without upsetting some element of the audience.Brushing that aside this is a great movie, by turns lyrical, happy and heartbreaking. The three leads are outstanding but Neil Simon it isn't. Rating : Four and one half stars going away.

I found this film easy to watch (as might a lot of males given the amount of skin shown on the screen) because as well as the plot which is apparent from the title of the film, it gives a great feeling of what the ordinary parts of Marseille are like. It's like walking or driving around in the city. One of Marie-Jo's lovers is a builder, the other a ship pilot. We see what their lives entail, and how she complicates them. It's interesting to see a woman nearly 50 years old carrying off a sexually-charged role with such self-assuredness. One can't imagine this happening in a Hollywood movie like this. It also refuses to take a moral tone on what she is doing, and overall the action seems more matter-of-fact than melodramatic. Whether you see this as realistic or boring depends on your expectations of this sort of film. To me, it seemed realistic, at least for the French, and it more or less kept me guessing how or if things would be resolved, right up to the rather odd conclusion. I found this was the most unsatisfactory part of the film, mainly because it was hard to see why things happened the way they did, it almost looking like the ending was tacked on merely to put some sort of conclusion to the film. Overall I quite liked it, for showing that ordinariness can still be interesting, and that everyone has to decide on morality for themselves.

Robert Guédiguian has created a world out of some parts of Marseille that I feel very comfortable in. His stock company of Ariane Ascaride, Gérard Meylan and Jean-Pierre Darroussin have made many films with him, and are at ease with his practices. If Darroussin's character is perhaps a little too eager to go along with his wife's infidelity, the richness of the narrative makes us pardon this flaw.

The film does have a very slow action which will make some viewers impatient. It takes a long time for Marie-Jo to leave Daniel and go off to Marco's house, and she has trouble at work (she drives disabled people to their doctor and back) that isn't fully examined. Ariane Ascaride's performance is fully equal to the demands made on her, and made me think more than once of Jeanne Moreau in Truffaut's masterpiece, a similar situation of a woman having to choose between two men and failing to do it.

How many films haven't you seen (especially French ones) about the married woman having an "affair"? There aren't many surprises here either, but the acting makes it believeable anyway. It's too much to say that this is like a documentary, it's far from it, but the realistic performances by Ariane Ascaride and Jean-Pierre Darroussin give real life to everything.

Marseilles plays a big part here. That city is almost like an actor. The emotional conditions for these people might have been different somewhere else. The tempo is slow however and so is the temper. You have time to breath, watching this.