VIOLETTE AND TRIDAN enjoy a day out, as a new, reunited couple in Life For Real.
“Life For Real” (La Vie Pour De Vral), co-starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, as Violette. Comedian Dany Boon directs and stars as Tridan, a commitment phobe who has spent his life at Club Med, living a life of leisure, trapped in a state of arrested development. Now, at 50 years old, he is determined to find his great childhood love, Violette.
This was such a fun movie. Tridan Lagache is desperately trying to find the love of his life, after living in Mexico and working for Club Med. So he puts all his hopes in a duffel bag and heads to Paris. He is hoping to find his great childhood sweetheart, after 42 years.
He always has on his mind when the Club Med guests leave on the bus, and the fact that he knows he won’t see them again. Although he doesn’t know them personally, he feels a tinge of sadness. He has flashbacks of this image even while in Paris.
He arrives in Paris, naive and lost but happy to be staying with Louis, a half-brother he did not know existed. To get rid of a cumbersome Tridan, Louis begs one of his conquests, Roxanne, to pretend to be Violette, whom Tridan thinks he recognizes at first sight.
But things don’t go as Louis plans, and what started as a game to get rid of Tridan ends with a love that, while maybe not his first love, a true love nonetheless.
Tridan is a quirky and romantic type, and Roxanne finds this suitable, compared to Louis.
This film is a pleasing romp through Paris, which puts Louis in a jealous state—but a state in which I believe he deserves to wallow.
The film screens on Sunday, March 10, at 3:15 p.m. at the Chicago European Union Film Festival at Gene Siskel Film Center. The Film Center is located at 164 N. State St.
