preppy-3 A French comedy about adultery. Two distant cousins meet at a wedding--Ludovic (Victor Lanoux) and Marthe (Marie-Christine Barrault). They're both married with children. They hit it off and become good friends. Their respective spouses think they're sleeping together. They're not but they decide why not try it?HUGE SPOILER!!! A BIG hit in the US (and even nominated for Best Foreign Film) this is a light-weight, fluffy and totally unremarkable film. It's flatly directed and the story wanders all over the place. It also presents adultery as being no big deal (!!!) At the beginning when Marthe's husband Pascal is breaking up with the multiple women he's been sleeping with it's presented as cute, charming and even funny! This was obviously long before AIDS but I still find that attitude pretty disgusting. Adultrey is not funny and cute and shouldn't be presented that way. Seriously, how about the kids in the respective families? Their feelings or thoughts are never bought up. To make it worse it ends with Marthe and Ludovic run away with each other and THIS is presented as a good thing!!!! The morals (or lack of them) in this film is bewildering. It gets a 4 only because the whole cast is good, it IS pleasant (if morally bankrupt) and Barrault and Lanoux play off each other well. There's also some minor female nudity. I can't recommend this at all but a lot of people liked it back in the 1970s. Use your own judgment.

Michael Neumann Two adult cousins go well beyond the kissing stage in this lighthearted French comedy, a popular choice for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, thanks in large part to its casually forthright attitude toward the joys of physical affection. The two lovers, each already married, are blithely unconcerned with the opinions of others, taking an altogether healthy pleasure in scandalizing their extended (bourgeois) family by retiring to the bedroom for hours on end during holiday reunions, and so forth. A surplus of natural charm, combined with a refreshing (and typically French) lack of romantic melodrama, make it an easy film to enjoy, and an unsurprising candidate for the inevitable glossy Hollywood remake, fourteen years later.

aimless-46 If you have a playful sense of humor and enjoy films with an early Fellini (celebration of life-quirky characters) flavor, you should make it a point to watch "Cousin Cousine". Released in 1975, on the surface this is just an off-beat love story about two middle-aged "cousins-by marriage" who are drawn to each other by a shared playfulness. These kindred spirits awaken in each other a zestful and irreverent attitude toward life that distances them from their large (and somewhat strange) extended family. They want to experience as much of life as possible, the man has made it a practice to change professions (not just jobs) every three years so that nothing gets stale. They are very open about their affair, reasoning that the rest of the family will think the worst anyway. Not surprisingly their affair also distances them from their respective spouses, who do not share their fun-loving and irreverent attitudes.The lovers are played by Christine Barrault (nominated for an Oscar) and Victor Lanoux. Although they are fun and likable characters, most of the comedy in this film emanates from the performances of the actors who play their respective spouses. Guy Marchand plays Barrault's husband as a cranky and pathetic Cassanova whose philandering lifestyle is cramped by his inability to cope with his wife's sudden infidelity. Marie-France Pisier, as Lanoux's neurotic airhead wife, subtly steals each scene in which she appears; when a character introduces themselves with the revelation that the only time they have ever been happy was during hypnotherapy, you know that interesting moments are ahead. And for what it is worth Pisier is breathtakingly beautiful.The affair causes the Marchand and Pisier characters a great deal of pain for most of the film, but by the end they have pretty much adjusted to everything. Marchand has resumed his pursue of other women and Pisier has returned to her main source of pleasure-therapy. Marchand's regeneration occurs with his first playful moment, he mounts a knife (fake) in his back and staggers into the living room to the shock of the assembled relatives. While Pisier's regeneration is the best scene of the film. Alone and fully clothed in the bathroom, she half-heartedly tries to slit her wrist with a razor blade and falls backward into the empty tub, which she unexpectedly finds a pleasant and relaxing place to think. And how appropriate since the bathtub is a device we associate with privacy, purgation, relaxation, openness, and regeneration.They say that all films are political and "Cousin Cousine" is no exception. Films have the power to deconstruct the traditional values of society and this love story is also a social commentary on the hypocrisy and double-standards of 1970's western middle class culture. And while pointing out these issues it offers psycho-political messages that each viewer can relate to personally and specifically. The theme is that each day should be a celebration of life, experience, and growth.The grandfather is shown as someone whose long life has given him a real perspective. He is pleased when his teenage granddaughter reveals that she has discovered sex and found it to be wonderful, delighted that she has found something see finds wonderful and amused because her joy is so contrary to the nihilism she had been embracing. He is self-sufficient, the widowed grandmother from the other side of the family enjoys being with him but realizes that he is perfectly comfortable and prefers living alone. He is disturbed by the failure of the family to take any significant time from their lives to mourn his brother's passing.The strange antics of the adults in this extended family are a source of great amusement to the observant children. The carnival music score gives the many extended and flowing group shots a pleasing circus side-show attraction flavor.Note how the film opens with one of families driving to the wedding; parents in the front seat, brother and little sister in the back seat. The parents are agitated and scolding, the children calm and attentive to the experience of the moment. They go out of the scene with the little sister sliding over to be closer to her brother and smiling in adoration. The same little observant girl appears in close-up periodically throughout the film, smiling in amusement at the antics of everyone around her. The film ends with the little girl smiling serenely out the window as she watches the lovers leave on their motorcycle.

Geordie-4 This movie was great. It was shown on Bravo cable channel here in America. I was a little buzzed from a night out and came back and found this flic on.I got it right at the beginning and was taken by the charming chemistry between the two cousins and the very sly and low-key nature of the relationship. That was a great part of the appeal of the movie for me. I also liked the two lead performances. Both were quite quietly confident and did not feel the need to throw themselves at the viewer in order to be seen.I enjoyed the fact that they thought about how best to get a rise out of their significant others. Well, I thought that was interesting and it showed two thoughtful people considering how best to achieve their goal and not totally consumed by lust. The reactions of the two effected spouses were very funny too. The two who were in the affair were very funny as they tried to contrive more and more ways to get back at their spouses. It was very interesting and not as glossed over as Hollywood films in which it takes the two cheating partners about 17.23 seconds to jump in the sack together. This movie played itself out and one could see how they moved from a platonic to a full relationship.