Antoine is the middle one of three Parisian brothers, and is the one who has taken it upon himself to sort out his siblings unhappy lives even though his own is heading south too. He works as a writer producing catalogues for exhibitions who are feeling the pinch in a tough economic climate, and he shares his office and his secrets with Ariel his colleague and confidante. Yet when he gets home to the city centre apartment that he shares with Adar his lover of 10 years he barely talks and insists on sleeping alone on an air mattress because of his ‘bad back’. He simply brushes off Adar’s notion of moving to the country and buying a house together.
His older neurotic brother Gérard has recently reluctantly separated from his wife and is camped out at his parent’s house whilst he stubbornly continues to believe his wife will take him back. Meanwhile Louis the younger brother is being pressured by his interfering father to marry his high-school sweetheart whilst he is in fact having an affair with a married woman who he clearly is totally besotted with.
It’s really not Antoine’s fault that he wants to fix everything as all three brothers have had to contend with the meddling father and ditzy mother all their lives. Dad stubbornly refuses to accept that the small menswear store he has owned for years is now dead in the water, and as he is now being hospitalized regularly for his heart condition, uses his fading health as a reason to pressure all three of his son into doing what he wants as he thinks he know best for them.
This rather charming French tale that is all about the compromises lovers and families make to keep their relationships alive, was adapted from a novel by Stephen McCauley (who also penned ‘The Object of My Affections’). Director Brice Cauvin changed the original setting of Massachusetts for this universal story that neatly captures the machinations of this close knit family who all seem to have difficult in recognising that three brothers are in different stages of falling in or out of love right now.
