Shall We Kiss

Colour, 35 mm
France, 2007, 100 min
Section: Horizons

Synopsis

An elegant designer named Émilie comes to Nantes for a short business trip and makes the acquaintance of the affable Gabriel. She accepts a noncommittal invitation to dinner, but refuses the equally noncommittal kiss the young man proposes at the end of the evening. All the resolve in the world in any case doesn’t mean a kiss is just a kiss. Instead of parting, the couple spends the entire night telling tales of the pitfalls of relationships that began with a seemingly innocuous kiss. Gabriel listens to the story of Émilie’s friend Judith, a happily married lab technician, who wanted to help her old friend Nicolas with his romantic troubles and, in doing so, got tangled up in a passionate affair. Gabriel himself then tells Émilie about how he once chanced upon his friend’s ex-girlfriend in a gallery one day… This charming romantic comedy about relationship problems seals director Emmanuel Mouret’s reputation as “the French Woody Allen“.

About the director

Emmanuel Mouret (b. 1970, Marseille, France) completed his studies in direction at FEMIS in Paris in 1998 with the medium-length Promène-toi donc tout nu!, in which he also played one of the main roles. In 2000 he debuted with the feature-length comedy Laissons Lucie faire and also made a drama about an encounter between two girls looking for the ideal man, Vénus et Fleur (2004). Audiences also warmly received his romantic comedy about a horn player who comes to Paris to look for love and happiness, Change of Address (Changement d’adresse, 2006). The director writes the screenplays for his films and performs in them as well. In Shall We Kiss he plays the part of Nicolas. This year saw his first performance in a film by another director, however, in Claire Simon’s God’s Offices (Les bureaux de Dieu, 2008).