Love Me Tender – BFI London Film Festival Review
Lawyer-turned-writer Clémence (Vicky Krieps) has been amicably separated from her husband Laurent (Antoine Reinartz) for three years. The two share an eight-year-old son, Paul (Viggo Ferreira Redier), and alternate custody every week.
Everyone seems to be happy with this arrangement, until one day, Clémence tells Laurent that she’s started seeing women romantically. Although he appears fine with the news at first, when it comes time to next pick Paul up for his week with her, he refuses to go (having clearly been manipulated by his father). Soon after, Laurent sues Clémence for sole custody, sparking a nightmarish, years-long struggle in bureaucratic quicksand.
Anna Cazenave Cambert’s Love Me Tender is based on an autobiographical novel by Constance Debré. The movie’s premise seems to be setting the stage for an epic Kramer vs. Kramer-style custody battle. That never comes to pass. In fact, we don’t see the inside of a court during the entirety of the 133-minute runtime. Paul is almost entirely absent for the first hour, and Clémence has very few confrontations with Laurent throughout. Mostly, we experience our heroine’s fight for her child via administration – spreadsheets of all the times her ex has cancelled visits; phone calls trying to arrange mediation in the first place; various well-meaning psychologists and mediators assuring her that they’ve filed positive reports, but they aren’t sure what good that they’ll do. Mainly: waiting. Lots and lots of waiting.
What Laurent does to his ex-wife and son is so appalling, it’s difficult to watch Love Me Tender without yearning for catharsis, or at least some kind of recourse. That we’re denied this easy, satisfying path is frustrating, yet also adds an unusual realism. It is a long movie, and those 133 minutes do not fly by, but that’s also a funny kind of a strength here. So much of the film is about the new, unwieldy rhythms of Clémence’s life, and we really do feel that. Thanks to a performance of spiky magnetism from generational talent Vicky Krieps, and later on, heartbreaking young star Viggo Ferreira Redier, there are bright spots dotted all along the way of this agonising wait for answers.
Unfortunately, where Love Me Tender does falter is in the depiction of Clémence’s same-sex relationships. Considering that the film is so much couched as her fighting to underline that romances with women don’t diminish her ability to raise her son, it’s disappointing that the romances in question are drawn so vaguely and unengagingly, even when the one night stands are halted and she settles down with one partner (Monia Chokri). While it doesn’t change the fundamental principal – of course Clémence having lesbian relationships has no bearing on her parenting skill – the lack in that department does throw off that balance of the narrative.
Still, between a typically great performance from Vicky Krieps, an empathetic depiction of the agony enforced by custodial bureaucracy, and an ending that’s sure to spark a lot of conversations, there’s plenty to admire about Love Me Tender.
★★★
