Mon Roi – first look review

When you think about, break ups are a lot like recov­er­ing from a cru­ci­ate lig­a­ment knee injury. In both instances the process can be a long and painful one, but in the end you emerge stronger than before, able to walk on your own two feet again. This some­what clum­si­ly con­struct­ed anal­o­gy forms the basis of Mon Roi, the fourth fea­ture from French actress-turned-direc­tor Maïwenn and the sec­ond to pre­mière in Cannes fol­low­ing Polisse, which won the Jury Prize here in 2011.

Emmanuelle Bercot – who opened this year’s Cannes as direc­tor of the stur­dy yet unspec­tac­u­lar Stand­ing Tall – stars as Tony, a crim­i­nal lawyer thrown into a state of midlife tor­por after a nasty ski­ing acci­dent leaves her tem­porar­i­ly immo­bilised. Before Tony has a chance to set­tle into her new sur­round­ings at a phys­i­cal reha­bil­i­ta­tion clin­ic, her ther­a­pist seam­less­ly cues up a series of flash­backs by prob­ing as to whether some­thing oth­er than fate might have con­tributed to Tony tak­ing a tumble.

The cat­a­lyst for Tony’s unrest is revealed in the form of play­boy restau­ra­teur Gior­gio (Vin­cent Cas­sel), who first caught her eye at a dis­cothèque 10 years pri­or. Arro­gant, dan­ger­ous­ly charm­ing and also kind of a jerk, Gior­gio sweeps Tony off her feet and straight into bed. It’s a fan­ci­ful yet unde­ni­ably love­ly meet cute, with Bercot and Cas­sel prov­ing an irre­sistible match. But the hon­ey­moon peri­od is short-lived. As the weeks and months pass, Tony and Gior­gio slow­ly come to the real­i­sa­tion they are far from a per­fect fit. Indeed, they destroy each other.

As a film­mak­er, Maïwenn is fas­ci­nat­ed with rela­tion­ships and how our inse­cu­ri­ties often sour the bonds we form – be it an eth­i­cal dilem­ma as in Polisse, or, in this case, the appar­ent­ly com­mon female con­cern of hav­ing a loose vagi­na. Mon Roi cer­tain­ly has its moments – at times it is extreme­ly fun­ny, at oth­ers sur­pris­ing­ly affect­ing – but its ideas about the minu­ti­ae of adult rela­tion­ships are ground­ed more in pop psy­chol­o­gy than prop­er semi­otic insight.

We’re repeat­ed­ly told that mar­riage is tough, espe­cial­ly when you throw a kid into the equa­tion; that peo­ple don’t change (espe­cial­ly men, the adul­ter­ous swines); that love doesn’t always con­quer all. Even if there is a fair amount of truth to all this, Mon Roi has noth­ing new to say. At one point, Gior­gio likens some­thing Tony says about their rela­tion­ship to a line from a Phil Collins song. On that note, one track sums up our thoughts on not just said rela­tion­ship but the entire film: ​‘I Don’t Care Anymore.’