On a Mag­i­cal Night – first look review

A Parisian roman­tic com­e­dy about infi­deli­ty comes as reli­ably as the sun ris­ing at dawn. Last year alone saw films like Philippe Garrel’s Lover for a Day, and A Faith­ful Man from his son Louis. What can be said about the appar­ent­ly gru­elling hard­ship of stay­ing faith­ful that isn’t a rep­e­ti­tion of these tired rumi­na­tions? And yet, with On a Mag­i­cal Night, Hon­oré expands the lim­i­ta­tions of the genre with a fresh take that bor­ders on the fantastical.

The film’s French title, Cham­bre 212, is more illu­mi­nat­ing than its lousy Eng­lish inter­pre­ta­tion. Arti­cle 212 of the French civ­il code states, ​“spous­es owe each oth­er respect, fideli­ty, sup­port and assis­tance,” fideli­ty being the key­word here. At a neat 90 min­utes, the film wastes no time in intro­duc­ing its adul­ter­er. Law lec­tur­er Maria (Chiara Mas­troian­ni) is hav­ing an affair with a stu­dent but gets caught in the act by her hus­band of 20 years Richard (Ben­jamin Bio­lay). The bright neon of a sign­post points to her next des­ti­na­tion, as she qui­et­ly slips out of her home and checks in at the hotel across the street.

Hon­oré is a direc­tor of two extremes, exem­pli­fied by his two Palme d’Or nom­i­na­tions. There’s the sin­cere and ground­ed Hon­oré of 2018’s Sor­ry Angel, and the whim­si­cal Hon­oré of 2007’s Jacques Demy-inspired musi­cal Love Songs. On a Mag­i­cal Night grav­i­tates towards the lat­ter with a the­atri­cal extrav­a­gance involv­ing spec­tral-like mov­ing doors, dra­mat­ic cam­era move­ments and bil­low­ing smoke.

On a Mag­i­cal Night resem­bles some­thing like a mar­i­tal Christ­mas Car­ol. Through­out the night, Maria is vis­it­ed by the ghosts of Richard past: her hus­band in his twen­ties (Vin­cent Lacoste, reunit­ing with Hon­oré after Sor­ry Angel), her dozen past affairs, and her will per­son­i­fied as singer Charles Aznavour.

The film gets par­tic­u­lar­ly caught up in the appari­tion of Richard’s piano teacher, who he repeat­ed­ly refers to as the ​“love of his youth”. As these visions of the past migrate to com­fort Richard too, much of the film takes time to eval­u­ate what could’ve been if Maria didn’t come into the pic­ture. Would they have been hap­py? Would they have a child? But it’s an unnec­es­sary tan­gent. In what is some­how not the film’s most egre­gious trans­gres­sion, the fact that Richard was a child when they met goes unac­knowl­edged. The sight of an author­i­ty fig­ure caress­ing a child’s bare back is uncom­fort­ably treat­ed like a joke.

Roman­tic films live or die on the rela­tion­ship they depict, and there’s a poten­cy to the decay­ing mar­riage with its auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal con­no­ta­tions. (Mas­troian­ni and Bio­lay were mar­ried for three years before they divorced in 2005.) A sense of urgency is all the more vis­i­ble as they take their rela­tion­ship apart and put the pieces back together.

“Love is always built on mem­o­ry,” Richard says. Mar­riage is a beast con­stant­ly in a state of evo­lu­tion. The per­son you fell in love with at 25 isn’t the same per­son at 45. Hon­oré ren­ders a famil­iar nar­ra­tive, but as its name sug­gests, On a Mag­i­cal Night is an enchant­i­ng jour­ney to be on.