CRFF – La Belle Époque

In this high-concept comedy from Nicolas Bedos (Mr. & Mrs. Adelman), a luddite car­toonist suffering an existential crisis hires a VR company to recreate a happier time in his marriage, as he tries to reconcile the golden-hued past with an inescapable digi­tal present. Starring Daniel Auteuil, Fanny Ardant, and Guillaume Canet (Cézanne et moi), La Belle Époque blurs historical eras while tracking a charismatic curmudgeon’s existential reckoning.

Victor (Auteuil) is a sexagenarian cartoon­ist whose longtime publisher has eliminated their print edition and, with it, his gig. No fan of AI or VR, Victor likes turning pages, touch­ing flesh, and seeing what’s actually before him. Alas, what’s before him is a resentful wife, Marianne (Ardant), who can no longer stand him. “I think you’ve been alive too long,” Marianne confesses during one of her rages.

Longing to escape the present, Victor opts to return to the past — or a simulacrum of it. Enter Time Travellers, a service that immerses clients in a painstaking reenact­ment of whatever historical moment its actors, designers, and builders can conjure. Victor hires Time Travellers to return him to May 16, 1974, the day he first met Marianne in a Lyon café. He finds himself beguiled by every detail, from the vintage editions of Libération to the punchy plastic egg holders to Margo (Doria Tillier), the actress he accepts as the Marianne he fell for 45 years ago. It feels like a beautiful dream. But what happens when it’s time to wake up?

Recalling the films of Charlie Kaufman — and Olivier Assayas’ Non-Fiction, which also starred Canet — La Belle Époque invites us to peer into the past, consider how it made us who we are, and to muse on who we might still aspire to be.

“Where so many high-concept romantic comedies squander their one big idea, La Belle Époque lever­ages its own to remind how and why we fall in love in the first place.” —Peter Debruge, Variety

French w/ English subtitles

Rated R

Tickets: $12 Admission (+applicable taxes & fees)