Love (Chloe) in the Afternoon

Love (Chloe) in the Afternoon (1972), Eric Rohmer

Vows to “forsake all others” are all well and good, but how does that settle the longing for the thrill of new romance, particularly for a married fortyish lawyer in Paris, walking the same streets and frequenting the same cafes as the miniskirted footsoldiers of the sexual revolution? Frederic (Bernard Verley) must put his intellectual musings into practice when the ideal becomes real in the form of Chloe (Zouzou), an ex-lover who re-enters his life through happenstance. Chloe’s carefree rejection of monogamy and her open invitation to Frederic contrast with the ordered rhythms and obligations of his settled family life, but he can only choose one image to privilege.

Russell Lucas

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2013 Top 25 Marriage Films — #21