You could, if you had a mind to, have a lot of fun with this, bringing in the school of thought that some directors tend to make the same movie over and over, recalling that Lelouch gave the world the ultimate chocolate box in Un Homme et une femme and now, half a century on, he weighs in with un + une; in English of course we don't differentiate between definite and indefinite articles so that 'the', 'a' and 'an' are a one size covers all whilst in France un is the indefinite article for a male person or thing and une the feminine. This gives us a new film from Lelouch which translates directly as male + female or more loosely, he plus she, him plus her. Of course if you are going to revisit an earlier success it helps if you don't replicate exactly, so, in A Man and a Woman, one of the couple worked in movies, specifically as a continuity girl as opposed to a writer, director, or actor, Here it is the man, Jean Dujardin, who composes music for films and is doing so now for a new version of Romeo and Juliet set in India. In this case the woman, Elsa Zylberstein, is as far from a racing driver as you can get; she is, in fact, the wife of the French Ambassador to India. With this sort of film it helps if the two leads are glamorous; okay, perhaps the greatest example of the genre, Brief Encounter, featured two ordinary people BUT they were played by Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard and, more importantly, they were working from a screenplay by Noel Coward. Lelouche is taking no chances; Elsa Zylberstein is drop dead gorgeous and Jean Dujardin has so much charm he sends the overspill to Vincent Cassell, who needs all the charm he can get. Charm + beauty is a great combination and Lelouche delivers a pleasant diversion that's definitely worth a look.
Review of Un + Une
