Trois Amies – first-look review

In my teenage years, I grew irritated with the romance genre of cinema. Amidst the tumultuous nature of those infamously problematic years navigating crushes and new relationships, being fed picture-perfect ideals of love morphed from feelings of rose-coloured optimism into sour betrayal. That’s not to say that these onscreen relationships were idealistic from the start, yet they always seemed to end in glorious bliss. It seemed as though no one dared to explore the dreaded moment where you could feel the honeymoon stage begin to slip from your grasp. No relationship can be smooth sailing at all times. Emmanuel Mouret’s Trois Amies takes this sentiment to a new level in a melodramatic story all about the often unseen imperfection of love and romance.

At the core of this story is a trio of friends, secondary school teachers Joan and Alice as well as Rebecca who is an artist and works at a gallery of sorts. On a sunny afternoon, Alice proposes that they all go on a triple date with their partners, but only one of them objects. Caught up in a fling with a mysterious married man who they all jokingly refer to as Mister X, Rebecca opts to keep his identity and the details of their relationship under the radar as much as possible. When she leaves the other two to go meet him, Joan confides in Alice, admitting to having fallen out of love with her partner Victor, who also teaches at the same school. Expecting scathing judgment, Joan is shocked when Alice reveals that while she is very fond of her husband Eric, she’s unsure if she has ever been ‘in love’ with him, at least not to the extent of his adoration for her. Little does she know that her husband is the man she playfully calls Mister X.

That same evening, Victor presses Joan on her ongoing lack of enthusiasm towards him, resulting in her coming clean about her recent loss of feelings. Though he is shocked, he insists that he is willing to be patient for the sake of their relationship and their nearly eight-year-old daughter, Nina. Despite his initial reaction, Joan’s confession begins eating away at Victor’s forbearance. Before walking away from the relationship he begs his wife to reconsider and find it in her to need him as much as he needs her, but to no avail. A night of fatal drinking takes Victor away from Joan more permanently than she had anticipated.

More often than not, the relationships between characters feel artificial and uninhabited. At times the performances and direction want to be taken more seriously than is earned and makes questionable technical decisions including inconsistent narrative voice and Victor’s opaque ghost talking to his widow. These choices generate a level of corniness that can be distracting from the more charming aspect of the film. Emmanuel Mouret and Carmen Leroi’s fun and fascinating screenplay is far and away the strong point of this project.

Interestingly, despite the title of the film, friendship takes a backseat in the story. Ironically all three women are entangled in each other’s secrets and their manipulative scheming is designed to only benefit themselves. The most compelling aspect of Trois Amies is its ability to ponder the construct of love and how its meaning differs to each person – to some love is about partnership while to others it’s about all-encompassing romantic reverence. Each character goes through a journey that encompasses the loss and gain of love, as well as those solitary moments in between. As the saying goes, humans always want what they don’t have, and ironically obtaining that person or thing is the only way to find out what you truly desire.