Canadian French film “The Nature of Love” is about one intelligent adult woman’s messy pursuit of romance. As following the ups and downs in its heroine’s romance story, the movie makes some sharp points on love and relationship, and the result is alternatively humorous and poignant before eventually reaching to the inevitable point where she must be really honest about her feelings.

At the beginning, the movie observes how things are mostly stable and comfortable for Sophie (Magalie Lépine-Blondeau), a forty-something lady who has taught philosophy at some university in Montreal, Canada. She has lived with a guy named Xavier (Francis-William Rhéaume) during last several years, and we see that both of them have been pretty fine with their current married life. Although they use separate bedrooms in their apartment, they are quite frank about themselves to each other, and there is an amusing scene where Sophie teasingly asks her husband whether he was really attracted to a certain young woman they met via a close friend of theirs.

And then there comes an unexpected moment of sexual attraction for Sophie on one day. When she comes to their country house outside the city, she encounters a hunky local handyman named Sylvain (Pierre-Yves Cardinal), and she cannot help but attracted more to him as he casually points out many stuffs to be fixed in the country house. After their first meeting, she cannot help but think more and more of this handsome dude, and then, what do you know, Sylvain turns out to be quite attracted to her, too.

Once they confirm their mutual attraction to each other, Sophie and Sylvain let themselves driven more by it, and we are accordingly served with several carnal moments between them. As they spend more time together, they become more fixated on each other, and this bothers Sophie a lot. Although she and Xavier actually agreed to be flexible about their relationship, her feelings toward Sylvain only get stronger day by day, and there eventually comes a point where she spills out everything in front of her husband, who is not that surprised but feels quite hurt nonetheless when Sophie tells him that she will soon leave him for Sylvain. 

For a while, Sophie feels really happy and excited to be around Sylvain, but, not so surprisingly, it does not take much time for her to see more of Sylvain’s less attractive sides. For example, Sylvain is your average working-class dude who is far less sophisticated than Sophie, and we become more aware of the considerable social/cultural gap between him and Sophie – especially when they happen to have a dinner with his family at one point. In addition, Sylvain also can be quite rude and harsh to Sophie over petty matters, and that is more than enough to make her very disillusioned about their relationship.

While its heroine comes to struggle over her matters of heart in one way or another, the screenplay by director/writer Monia Chokri, who also incidentally played Sophie’s best friend in the film, observes her increasingly messy circumstance with more humor and understanding. We get some laughs as she makes several unwise choices along the story, but we also come to understand her confusion and conflict more. Yes, she simply wants more romance and excitement in her life, and you will surely emphasize with her more if you have ever been as messy as her in your pursuit of love and relationship (Full Disclosure: I have been in such a state more than once during last several years since I came out as a gay in 2016). 

In the end, everything in the story culminates to the climactic scene where our heroine should make a big decision for herself, and I admire how deftly Chokri handles this crucial moment. While nothing is directly expressed across the screen, a small action made by our heroine feels quite dramatic nonetheless, and we can clearly sense her silent but firm decision on her life.

The movie depends a lot on the romantic mood generated between its two lead performers, who often spark the screen with the palpable chemistry between them. As the center of the film, Magalie Lépine-Blondeau is engaging as flawlessly illustrating her character’s complex feelings during several key scenes of hers in the film, and she is complemented well throughout the film by Pierre-Yves Cardinal, whom you may remember for his solid supporting performance in Xavier Dolan’s “Tom at the Farm” (2013). As Sophie’s less-than-perfect husband, Francis-William Rhéaume holds his own place well around the story, and he is especially good when his character desperately attempts to get closer to his ex-wife later in the story.

In conclusion, “The Nature of Love” is pretty familiar in terms of story and characters, but its story is presented well with enough intelligence and emotion in addition to giving us some valuable insights on love and relationship, which remind me of what my late mentor/friend Roger Ebert wrote in his review on Woody Allen’s “Husbands and Wives” (1992): “True love involves loving another’s imperfections, which are the parts that tend to endure.” Like the main characters of that incisively funny but painful comedy film, Sophie comes to learn that hard truth around the end of the story, but I think she will be eventually okay even though many things remain very uncertain around her. At least, she has now a full control on her life and herself as before, doesn’t she?