Alain Resnais's Cœurs | Private Fears in Public Places (2006)

This comedy drama is light years away from the early films which gave Resnais his hallowed name in cinema history: in fact on occasion it very nearly, but not quite, tips into farce. Still constant are some intrusive thoughts from memory, and the ending is a very long way from the traditonal comedy.

Everyone in the film is discontented with his or her current situation and strives escape from it. And if it's largely about loneliness, it's also about sex. Interestingly, and although this is in no way a sequel, Thierry (André Dussollier) is an estate agent as he was in On connaît la chanson nine years before, but Charlotte (Sabine Azéma) works there too. Thierry, who lives with his much younger sister Gaëlle (Isabelle Carré) is sexually frustrated and lusts after Charlotte: particularly after this supposedly devout woman lends Thierry two VHS tapes (yes, in 2006) she's recorded religious programmes on, but inadvertently forgotten to erase scenes of herself cavorting sexily in front of the screen in her underwear.

Then there's the couple Nicole (Laura Morante) and Dan (Lambert Wilson) who are having trouble finding a suitable flat, with Dan insisting that it has room for his office: this recalls Nicolas (Jean-Pierre Bacri) giving Dussolier's character problems in On connaît la chanson. But as we are made to probe a little deeper, the relationship between Nicole and Dan is not what it seems: he's been kicked out of the army for some unknown reason, drowns his sorrows frequently at the local bar attached to a hotel and comes home drunk. Nicole is sick of him because, whereas she has a job, Dan doesn't seem interested in getting one. In fact it irks her so much that she throws him out and he's forced to temporarily stay at the four-star hotel. The barman Lionel (Pierre Arditi) advises him to write a small ad for the paper, and quite by chance (yes, I repeat that it's 2006) also mentions the internet, although we see nothing of it here, not even a mobile phone.

Meanwhile, Gaëlle is secretly going out at night to meet potential partners, although she's not having much success with the lonely hearts columns. Surprisingly, when she meets Dan they really strike it off: not only does she like to get drunk too, but she'll meet him the following night at the bar attached to the hotel.

And so we come to Lionel, who's had a bad time with life and is now looking after his cantankerous father Arthur, who we never actually see, although we hear the voice of Claude Rich. But Lionel now needs someone else to look after his father while he works nights at the bar, and who should come along as a nursemaid but Bible-wielding Charlotte? She receives plates and food thrown at her, gets exasperated, but finds a way to soothe him by parading into the bedroom in her underwear.

The end of the film is one of the most pessimistic as possible. Nicole feels really bad about throwing Dan out, but when she comes to see Dan at the bar Gaëlle sees them and runs back to her brother. And Arthur has been sent to hospital and is telling scarcely believable tales about his homehelp. The result is that everyone is trapped inside his or her loneliness. Bleak indeed, but it appears (reading Wikidedia's synopsis of it) to adhere pretty strictly to Alan Ayckbourn's play Private Fears in Public Places (2004) on which it's based.