After Love

The French title of Joachim Lafosse’s lat­est fea­ture film is ​‘L’Économie du Cou­ple’. Trans­la­tion: ​‘The Econ­o­my of the Cou­ple’, a play on the mean­ings of the term econ­o­my. Ety­mo­log­i­cal­ly, the word refers to the gen­er­al man­age­ment of the house­hold, but it is used in every­day par­lance to dis­cuss mon­e­tary issues.

For Marie (Bérénice Bejo) and Boris (Cédric Kahn), mon­ey is indeed cen­tral to their prob­lems as a divorced cou­ple. While Boris looks for a job and anoth­er place to live, he has to stay in the house he used to share with his ex-wife and their eight-year-old twin daugh­ters, all the while dis­cussing the shares of the res­i­dence they are each due. Lafosse’s deci­sion to give wealth such an impor­tant place isn’t a sign of heart­less­ness or dis­in­ter­est for the sen­ti­men­tal trau­ma of a divorce. Instead, it’s a clever way to approach this ordeal with respect­ful detach­ment, com­ing at it through the triv­i­al­i­ties of a break-up.

Marie and Boris still have to live in the very house they are fight­ing over every day, and with great sub­tle­ty Lafos­se com­mu­ni­cates their real­i­sa­tion that this safe haven they built is no more. Every object, every wall, every piece of fur­ni­ture is the same as it used to be, but is now exposed to the couple’s fights and ten­sion. They take on a new, sad mean­ing. Every cor­ner of the cosy house makes the cou­ple pon­der the heart­break­ing ques­tion that sep­a­ra­tions often bring to one’s mind: how did we end up here?

It is through the every­day, more or less con­tentious inter­ac­tions between all fam­i­ly mem­bers as they try to live togeth­er that Joachim Lafos­se del­i­cate­ly hints at the answer to this ques­tion. In the way they man­age dai­ly chores and, more par­tic­u­lar­ly, in the atti­tude they adopt towards their twins Jade and Mar­gaux, Marie and Boris’ dif­fer­ent approach­es to life shine through, at once evi­dent yet some­times emo­tion­al­ly incomprehensible.

This isn’t to say that the direc­tor shies away from more ver­bal­ly vio­lent alter­ca­tions that real­is­ti­cal­ly can’t always be avoid­ed when two peo­ple resent­ing each oth­er have to share the same roof. Nev­er­the­less, his point of view remains full of com­pas­sion for both Marie and Boris even in these sober­ing scenes.

Even more poignant, how­ev­er, is how this hum­ble approach also reveals the remain­ing bonds between the ex-spous­es: despite their irrec­on­cil­able dif­fer­ences, Marie and Boris still share a per­son­al con­nec­tion, even if it is a ten­u­ous one, and are still unit­ed in their com­mit­ment to par­ent­ing. The film’s most beau­ti­ful scene shows the fam­i­ly danc­ing togeth­er in the liv­ing room, and in the space of one song, all the com­plex­i­ties of the sit­u­a­tion are laid bare.

Bérénice Bejo proves her­self capa­ble of great nuance as con­tra­dic­to­ry emo­tions run through her face: fear, dis­dain, a spark of hope as the cou­ple come togeth­er in an embrace, soon cloud­ed by tears when remem­ber­ing, again and again, that things have changed. Even­tu­al­ly, she comes to grudg­ing­ly accept the sit­u­a­tion. Lafosse’s cam­era doesn’t need any com­plex set­ting or to come up close to find and expose the end­less­ly com­pli­cat­ed work­ings of Marie’s and Boris’ hearts. Wit­ness­ing their often pet­ty argu­ments about mon­ey, and look­ing at their faces when they are unable express their feel­ings, it’s all too easy to under­stand and relate to their crisis.