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SFFILM Festival

If You Don’t, I Will

Directed by Sophie Fillières

France | 102

2 May
Fri, May 2, 2014 at 9:15 pm PT
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Description

After a couple of decades, Pomme and Pierre have lost their rhythm. They can’t converse in an art gallery without knocking a picture off the wall. When Pierre races to catch a late-night bus, his mystified partner remains abandoned on the sidewalk. Their jokes and jibes sail right past each other, though we find ourselves chuckling into the void. Is this the end of the affair, or a fleeting failure to communicate? It’s not a heavy scene, that’s for sure, and while there’s no sexual charge between Pomme and Pierre, there’s no enmity, either. In fact, neither is eager to leave. The extraordinary Emmanuelle Devos and Mathieu Amalric (who also played lovers in A Christmas Tale, 2008) give fascinating, slightly off-center performances that keep us from taking sides and make viewers wish their characters could rediscover the missing ingredient. Although subconsciously they understand that they can’t prolong this awkward limbo indefinitely, neither has the heartlessness to leave. A hike in the nearby forest leads to a fork in the road, propelling this droll romance-on-the-rocks in unexpected directions. —Michael FoxFillières

Director Sophie Fillières

Parisian writer-director Sophie Fillières has helmed five films, including the comedies Un chat un chat (featuring her daughter, Agathe Bonitzer), Gentille (starring Emmanuelle Devos) and Ouch (starring her sister, Hélène Fillières). About If You Don’t, I Will, Fillières has said, “I wanted to write about letting go of everything and saying no to a suffocating life, to insinuations and misunderstandings, which are an everyday form of violence.”

Trailer

//player.vimeo.com/video/88192042?autoplay=1

Film Details

Language French

Original Language Title Arrête ou je continue

Year 2013

Runtime 102

Country France

Director Sophie Fillières

Producer Martine Marignac, Maurice Tinchant

Writer Sophie Fillières

Editor Valérie Loiseleux

Cinematographer Emmanuelle Collinot

Cast Emmanuelle Devos, Mathieu Amalric, Anne Brochet, Joséphine de la Baume