Godard, mon amour

At a defining moment in New Wave provocateur Jean-Luc Godard’s artistic life, when the didactic La Chinoise (1967) marked a shift in style as radical as his politics, the thirty-seven-year-old filmmaker also fell in love with his twenty-year-old leading lady Anne Wiazemsky. Louis Garrel inhabits the auteur’s pugnacious soul as he embraces the protests sweeping France and embarks on a tempestuous second marriage. Writer/director Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist) pays homage to Godard’s genius even as he cheekily sends up the director’s excesses and pretensions.

“A dazzlingly executed, hugely enjoyable act of stylistic homage, but also the poignant story of a dysfunctional marriage and an insightful recreation of a critical and contradiction-ridden period of modern French history.”—Jonathan Romney, Screen Daily

“Viewers of all stripes, and not only film buffs and Francophiles, will gravitate toward this irreverent romp. The film doesn’t take itself seriously (unlike the Godard portrayed here by Louis Garrel, toning down his good looks and amping up his inner nerd). Rather, it acknowledges his place in French film history, while sending up his ego.”—Kent Turner, Film-Forward