“A bitingly funny and unexpectedly tender treatise on the nature of love.”

For some people retirement represents a new beginning, while for others it signals the end. In the case of Émile, a lifelong academic who has just concluded the final lesson of his career, it represents a blend of both. He was hoping to step into a more peaceful, slow-paced life now that he has been given the opportunity to retire after working as a teacher for decades, ending his career as a well-respected member of the education community. However, matters are complicated when he returns home to find his wife has left him. This throws the usually composed Émile into an absolute frenzy as he tries to understand what could drive someone to walk away from what he thought was a happy marriage. Émile also learns more about what he considered his primary area of expertise through interactions with two women – one a former girlfriend from his youth, the other an alluring stranger. The story of a man who believes he is an expert on the art of love, only to discover that the knowledge he thought he had was entirely hollow, is the entry point into Love Lessons by Martin Provost. The film is a bitingly funny and unexpectedly tender treatise on the nature of love and the role it plays in forming one’s identity and developing a specific worldview, particularly when it comes to questioning the choices made throughout one’s life. A film as simple as it is engaging, it dissects the nature of romance from many different angles, presenting the audience with a wonderfully entertaining comedy of manners that boasts a strong cast, exceptional writing and some of Provost’s richest, most evocative storytelling. In addition, Love Lessons proves that there is still room for traditional approaches to certain subjects, particularly those that have always benefited from a simpler and more nuanced style.

As is usually the case with Provost’s work, Love Lessons is a film that develops as an intelligent, subversive exploration of a familiar subject. It does this through asking a range of key questions that may not necessarily be answered, but rather guide the story, giving it clear structure and a sense of direction. One of the core questions here is whether it can ever be too late to fall in love with someone, a fascinating idea given that this is the rare romantic comedy where every major character is over the age of fifty (and the protagonist himself is verging on seventy by the time the film starts), which is not something we commonly see in a genre that prioritizes youth more than experience. From this, the director crafts a film that initially seems like a very didactic view of love, with the opening scene being a lengthy academic lecture that tries to contextualize romance as something that can be filtered through a specific philosophical lens. This is immediately contradicted as soon as the central tension that drives the film is introduced. These are people seeking a more fulfilling, joyful life, but struggling to reconcile their place within a culture that doesn’t always look fondly on late-period romances, or at best tends to view them as adorable novelties. Every character in Love Lessons is seeking a more fulfilling life through finding the right person to share it with. A range of awkward interactions forms the foundation for a blisteringly funny deconstruction of a man caught between rekindling the spark he had with an old flame or starting a relationship with someone entirely new. It ties back into the central theme of these characters all being exceptionally intelligent people who prove that even with years of experience, everyone is still in a constant state of learning – but instead of the lessons learned in classrooms, these are more practical and far less easy to navigate.

Provost is fortunate to have enlisted the help of three fantastic actors to play the key roles in Love Lessons, each one of them extraordinarily talented and willing to tackle this rich, complex set of themes. The primary lead is Fabrice Luchini, who is given another intelligent character that seems slightly incompetent when it comes to any real-world matters to which his academic credentials can’t be applied. Luchini again proves to be one of the most unconventional actors working today, particularly since his ability to play people who walk the line between charismatic and hopelessly fumbling is always entertaining. It helps that his deadpan sense of humor and willingness to be the subject of gentle ridicule can make for a truly compelling protagonist – and his Émile is endearing, even at his most prickly. He’s joined by the tremendous Emmanuelle Devos as Laeticia, a former girlfriend with whom he initially considered spending his life, in the folly of youth, before realizing that they weren’t as compatible as he expected; and Chiara Mastroianni as Audrey, an eccentric stranger whom Émile encounters by chance and immediately finds intriguing. All three of these characters are people struggling with the idea of love, having experienced relationships that proved to be unfulfilling or fell apart at the seams, leading them to believe that they’re doomed to spend the rest of their lives in isolation. Naturally this is not the case, and the film has a lot of fun portraying the various interactions amongst the trio, while also quietly moving towards a more challenging place when it becomes clear that Émile is going to have to choose between them. It’s a tough decision that is made even more difficult when he is forced to recognize that these are women with agency, rather than just objects of desire onto which he can assert his decades of academic research. It leads to a bittersweet conclusion where the choice is made, shown in a climactic scene where all three actors are doing some genuinely moving work that binds this film together and highlights its core themes quite effectively.

Despite the nature of the story, and the presence of actors who play their roles in a rather stoic, academic way, Love Lessons is a compelling film in terms of its emotional inventory, with the director understanding that the only way to effectively tell this story is by finding the right tonal balance. It is primarily a comedy consisting of a constant stream of awkward interactions, which adds an enjoyable layer of context to the lives of characters that are positioned as experts in their field, but the moment they step out of the comfort of their home or office, they become hopelessly lost. This kind of narrative could only work with layers of humor surrounding it, since otherwise it would have been unbearable; a more dramatic approach would’ve nullified a lot of its more interesting elements, as it explores a topic that is inherently quite funny. However, it’s not a purely lightweight affair, since the joyfulness that hangs over the film is contrasted sharply by a lingering melancholy that gradually envelopes it, in a way that doesn’t diminish the value of the comedic elements, but rather complements them and creates a distinct balance. This balance allows Provost the flexibility to deliver a much stronger and more evocative message, working through a range of emotions in the process. It’s a tenderly funny portrait of finding love at an advanced age, as well as a heartfelt depiction of the search for deeper meaning in a world that these people genuinely believed they understood, only to suddenly realize that reality is far less easy to condense into a few theoretical principles than they had expected. It ultimately manages to be optimistic without being saccharine or falsely idealistic, and through both the larger, offbeat moments of humor and the smaller, tender moments of deep human connection, Love Lessons is proof that the right balance of ideas can create a very memorable experience that feels much richer and more poignant than other works in the genre.  

Love Lessons is not a film that tries to redefine the romantic comedy genre, but rather functions as a charming, intelligent exploration of the intersection between love and philosophy, two concepts that Provost proposes as more closely related than we may have believed. The director ultimately suggests that while there may be no such thing as a soulmate (at least not in the idealistic ways that the protagonist has spent much of his personal and professional life imagining), it is still possible to find a true companion once we stop reducing loving to any single theory or academic principle. As a result, the film is built around an engaging central dilemma, in which these people have to choose between accepting whoever crosses their paths and shows some interest, or being too selective and running the risk of regrets later on. In either case, certainty is not possible, no matter how much supposed skill and experience goes into the process. This ultimately is what makes the film so endearing, since it never promises any definitive answers, but embraces the unknown and promotes the importance of accepting life’s unpredictability. It certainly does not reinvent the romantic comedy, although as one of the rare instances of a more upbeat story of love built around older characters seeking companionship later in life, it does have some novelty. Yet through its willingness to approach familiar ideas with genuine intelligence and an abundance of sincerity, it flourishes into a charming curio that feels much more thoughtful than its modest premise may suggest. Provost never allows the story to become overly sentimental, and instead maintains a gently sardonic tone throughout the film. Proof that some of life’s most important questions quite simply cannot be answered intellectually, and that perhaps the only real lesson about love is that there is always more to learn.