17/08/2026 - French director Martin Provost’s latest feature is a meditation on love and an ode to levity in spite of life’s hardships

French director Martin Provost presents his ninth feature, Love Lessons, on the Piazza Grande at the Locarno Film Festival, offering a light-hearted yet intense portrait of a man trying to restore meaning to a life that is fading away day by day. Three years after the success of Bonnard, Pierre and Marthe, Provost returns to the subject of couples, although this time they are made up of seemingly “ordinary” people – or at least, that is what he initially leads us to believe.

On the eve of his retirement, Émile (Fabrice Luchini) gives his final lesson at a secondary school that means everything to him. For this last “performance”, he chooses to talk about love or, rather, about the importance of emotions in an increasingly sterile and conformist society. During what seems like a somewhat comical homage to Dead Poets Society, Provost shows us a teacher encouraging his students to become poets of their own existence. Intoxicated by his own monologue, however, Émile forgets to ask himself a fundamental question: is he still capable of loving, of surrendering to a burning emotion that can make him lose his sanity? Unable to answer this question and emotionally shaken after leaving behind the reassuring walls of his school, Émile returns home to discover that his wife has left him.

Émile must therefore come to terms with a series of bewildering and sudden changes that he certainly had not planned for. Forced, despite himself, to confront the words he had uttered only a short while before in class, the protagonist must open his heart to the uncertainty of romantic relationships (among others), which will turn his everyday life into an emotional rollercoaster. Through unexpected encounters, chiefly with three very different women – the mysterious hippie he meets at the supermarket (Carole Bouquet), the betrayed wife in search of freedom (Chiara Mastroianni) and a former flame from his youth (Emmanuelle Devos) – the protagonist is made to face his fears. Each of them shows him a different way of loving, of opening one’s heart to a world that seems to offer infinite possibilities.

Love Lessons is undoubtedly a film about love, about the difficulty of opening up to others without being afraid of laying oneself bare or revealing one’s vulnerabilities. Provost corners his protagonist, urging him to reinvent himself and thaw a heart that has long since frozen over. But the movie is also a reflection on freedom, on the madness of freely choosing one’s own path even when reason pushes us towards safety and stability. In this respect, the female characters fortunately never lapse into the clichés associated with romantic relationships – exclusively heterosexual ones, which is perhaps one of the film’s limitations. On the contrary, they are the ones who set the rules, who choose what to do with their own lives, heedless of judgement, and proud of and fiercely protective of their freedom.

Another key character in the film is the nature that surrounds and cradles the protagonists. An admirer of northern France, Provost depicts the mysterious beaches of Normandy with great tenderness and a touching hint of nostalgia. A place that is at once real and imaginary, the town of Dieppe becomes a kind of alter ego for Émile, an embodiment of his inner world, both troubled and deliberately secretive.

Love Lessons is a film centred on a fragile but never defeated character, a light-hearted and at times retro work that is sure to delight fans of Fabrice Luchini and his eccentric, poetic screen presence.

Love Lessons was produced by France’s Les Films du Kiosque and is sold internationally by Paradise City Sales.

(Translated from Italian)