The New Girlfriend

Description

Grief takes on new (and brightly colored) attire in François Ozon’s delightful and liberatory new film. When gorgeous Laura (Isild Le Besco) dies young, leaving behind an infant child, her husband David (Romain Duris) and best friend Claire (Anaïs Demoustier) retreat into their own private cocoons of grief, awkward and tentative with each other. All this is upended when Claire discovers an element of the devastated widower’s coping mechanism—he dresses in his wife’s clothes. This ingenious conceit, entirely credible and brought to life with great complexity and acting prowess by all involved, allows the film to unpack a multitude of ideas surrounding gender, friendship and romantic attraction. As Claire opens up to the idea of David in drag (they call his female alter ego Virginia), this new twist gives them freedom to pay tribute to the woman they both loved without drowning in sadness. Matters get more complicated, but The New Girlfriend remains effortlessly charming in spite of its curvy and surprising plot. Ozon employs elements of other great auteurs—the vibrant colors and soaring score of Sirk, the shifting psychological grounds of Hitchcock and the gender-based subversiveness of Almodóvar—blending them into a concoction all his own and worth savoring to the last drop. —Rod Armstrong

Film Details