The story is thin: Anne (Anouk Aimée) and Jean-Louis (Jean-Louis Trintignant) meet, fall in love, have a hiccup, then move on to a happy ending. He is a race car driver and she is in the movie business (at some high level that I could never identify). The only things that lift this above soap opera--there being a suicide, an accidental death, a near fatal car accident--are its stars and its style. It's a mood piece using soft focus, some poetic imagery, extreme close-ups, telephoto lens shots, and a romantic score. Some of the mood shots may or may not work for you, like a *long* take of a dog running on the beach.
In the spirit of full disclosure I can attest that if you have a dislike of auto racing, then that will detract from your enjoyment. I think that in well over half of the scenes cars play a role: people talking in cars, people racing cars, cars on oval tracks, cars being worked on. This could have been titled, "A man and a Woman and Cars." This may have been an early example of product placement, since the Ford Motor Company got some advertising here.
On occasion a scene is inserted that appears to have no relevance, but then it turns out to be a scene from a movie that Anne is working on. I think the primary goal of those scenes and the auto racing scenes are to provide some variety and excitement to prop up an otherwise weak plot line. The screen time devoted to Trintignant's profession totally eclipses that for Anne's and I found that that unbalanced the story.
This slight film is overly calculated to please. I came away with only a superficial understanding of this man and this woman.
In the spirit of full disclosure I can attest that if you have a dislike of auto racing, then that will detract from your enjoyment. I think that in well over half of the scenes cars play a role: people talking in cars, people racing cars, cars on oval tracks, cars being worked on. This could have been titled, "A man and a Woman and Cars." This may have been an early example of product placement, since the Ford Motor Company got some advertising here.
On occasion a scene is inserted that appears to have no relevance, but then it turns out to be a scene from a movie that Anne is working on. I think the primary goal of those scenes and the auto racing scenes are to provide some variety and excitement to prop up an otherwise weak plot line. The screen time devoted to Trintignant's profession totally eclipses that for Anne's and I found that that unbalanced the story.
This slight film is overly calculated to please. I came away with only a superficial understanding of this man and this woman.