We see a man and a woman meet on the Parisian subway. The relationship starts awkwardly, they have a commuters spat, then fuck in the nearest private space they can find, a photo booth. Thus starts a meandering evening of strolling around the city and introspecting about life and love - in a stereotypically French cafe philosophy kind of way.
After they have debated their views to within an inch of their lives, at the very end of the film, there is a twist revealed which impressively changes the tone and effect of alot of the preceeding conversations entirely. This forced retroactive analysis works very well at a first glance, but at the same time, with my sceptic's head on, it is not entirely believable that the relationship we saw would have taken place as shown given what we now know.
It was reasonably enjoyable, had some sweet moments and the revelations certainly helped but it was not particularly investing for me, and was strangely cold in a way. The performances were lacking something, although I don't know what. This kind of film is a hard one to get right, due to it being so reliant on the character's chemistry. It made me reconsider the genius level of The Before Trilogy (the obvious comparison) and Once (2007).
3 out of 5
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