22/05/2025 - CANNES 2025: Alex Lutz tackles Nicolas Mathieu's landmark book, a melancholy love story set against a backdrop of social breakdown, starring Mélanie Thierry and Bastien Bouillon

Mélanie Thierry and Bastien Bouillon in Connemara

Alex Lutz is back at the Cannes Film Festival as a director, following the presentation in 2023 of his 3rd feature film Strangers By Night [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]. In Connemara [+see also:
interview: Alex Lutz
film profile], which he is presenting in Cannes Première, he looks at Nicolas Mathieu's latest novel, an exploration of the class divide in the French provinces.

There are films that, in a way, could begin with the end. Connemara is one of them, for the many who have read Nicolas Mathieu's best-selling book, and therefore know the destination of the love story at its heart. And for French-speaking audiences who know the song that inspired its title, Michel Sardou's Les Lacs du Connemara, the chorus that concludes many parties, when the lights are turned back on and everyone sings at the top of their voices. A popular song, which for some is a social marker, situating its listeners in a class, for others a link that connects its listeners to these different social classes. So when a film is called like that, you'd think that in the end it's going to be about class. And the question of class is central to the love story that drives the narrative of the book and the film by Alex Lutz. Will the passion that brings Hélène (Mélanie Thierry) and Christophe (Bastien Bouillon) together be able to blossom despite the social status that sets them apart?

After a career in Paris, Hélène tries to recover from a burn-out by relocating with her family to the East of France, the region where she was born and, above all, which she did everything in her power to leave behind. A senior executive in human resources, she quickly finds a job that satisfies her only slightly more than her previous one, and above all, in a poorly-lit car park, she finds Christophe, her high school crush, captain of the hockey team, an adolescent fantasy that has never been fulfilled. Christophe hasn't moved, either geographically or socially. He's even about to rejoin the hockey team. Hélène is bored, and remembers that when she was young it was her greatest fear, so she's looking for a second wind, and this resurrected love story could well offer her one, if she manages to bridge the divide.

Nicolas Mathieu's book was a social-sentimental novel, and Alex Lutz has chosen to reinterpret it in social melodrama mode, notably through the orchestral soundtrack and the strings that accompany the waltz of feelings. As Hélène's ideas tumble around in her head, the editing brings the narrative out of sync, layering it on top of each other. The voice-overs of the two protagonists, recounting their stories at the therapist's office or elsewhere, resonate with their daily lives, and the words of one illustrate the experiences of the other, sometimes in similarity, more often in opposition. Hélène, a social-class dropout, has her heart set on going somewhere else. Christophe, firmly anchored in his genealogy, between his love for his father and his son, dreams of here. There are people like you and people like us. Can love erase the pronoun barrier? That's the big question posed by Alex Lutz. It's up to each of us to answer it in our own way.

Connemara was produced by Incognita Studio (France) and co-produced by SuperMouche Productions (France), Grands Ducs Films (France) and Wrong Men (Belgium). International sales are handled by Studiocanal.

(Translated from French)

Photogallery 22/05/2025: Cannes 2025 - Connemara

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Alex Lutz, Clémentine Célarié, Bastien Bouillon, Mélanie Thierry, Nicolas Mathieu
© 2025 Fabrizio de Gennaro for Cineuropa - fadege.it, @fadege.it