Mon Roi (My King)
22/03/17 Filed in: Amazon Prime
Directed by French actress Maïwenn Le Besco, this film certainly offers a female perspective of what it must be like to be a woman in love with an absolute jerk. I felt sorry for her and embarrassed by his shameless mistreatment. Vincent Cassel plays the said jerk, Georgio, while Emmanuelle Bercot is his long suffering girlfriend/wife Tony.
The film starts in the mountains where Tony launches into an aggressive downhill ski slope, this being the prequel to us seeing her in convalescence recovering from a serious leg injury. During this recovery she reflects back on her relationship with Georgio, the good, the bad and the awful. In fact the film continually jumps between the convalescence home and their past, to the point that at the end I wasn't too sure what time frame I was watching.
Their relationship starts in a club, where Tony eyes Georgio, prior to flicking water in his face. In doing this she is emulating what she had seen him do years before, when she was serving in a bar. It was part of his chat-up technique. They are instantly attracted to each other and thus begins a fun-filled period, which is portrayed as being everything one could wish from a relationship. The only problem is that Georgio had a girlfriend, Agnès, a model, who calmly informs Tony that she has stolen her man. It transpires that Georgio has known quite a few models: quite a few women in fact. And Georgio hasn't quite fully broken off his relationship with Agnès, so when she attempts suicide and ends up seriously ill in hospital, Georgio starts to spend more and more time with her, and less with Tony.
From this point the relationship see-saws as Tony desperately wants to believe in Georgio while he subjects her to psychological torment. Despite this, she becomes pregnant and they have a little boy, who Georgio insists will be called Sinbad, this being just one bit of control freakery among many. They also marry. And at some point he suggests that to help their relationship he should move to a separate apartment, which causes Tony to lose it completely while he's showing her this new abode. I must say that I can't remember the precise sequence of these events! One day, Georgio tells Tony that he can't look after Sinbad the following morning, but when Tony calls at the apartment to leave him a message, she finds him in bed with a young woman. A woman he says he doesn't know!
Meanwhile, cutting back to her convalescence, she is slowly and painfully improving and has made friends with some younger patients, all men, while reverting to the fun-loving person she was before Georgio drove her into depression. As we then cut back to the relationship, I must admit that I became a bit confused. She asks for a divorce, which he resists, but it ultimately happens. Then, newly divorced, they're back in bed together. And so it goes on. She obviously loves him but can't live with him, while he keeps saying he loves her, but does precious little to show it. He does, however, seem truly to adore his son, at one point threatening to take him from Tony if they divorce. She is a lawyer, and Georgio teasingly asks her to be his representative for the divorce, which of course would be impossible and is just another assault on her already depressed mind.
This is a fairly long film at 2h 4min and this short review probably doesn't do it justice, not helped by my confusion over the sequence of events in places. But basically it's a story of how a narcissistic man emotionally destroys a decent fun-loving young woman. The female director clearly had a message to get across.
Meanwhile, cutting back to her convalescence, she is slowly and painfully improving and has made friends with some younger patients, all men, while reverting to the fun-loving person she was before Georgio drove her into depression. As we then cut back to the relationship, I must admit that I became a bit confused. She asks for a divorce, which he resists, but it ultimately happens. Then, newly divorced, they're back in bed together. And so it goes on. She obviously loves him but can't live with him, while he keeps saying he loves her, but does precious little to show it. He does, however, seem truly to adore his son, at one point threatening to take him from Tony if they divorce. She is a lawyer, and Georgio teasingly asks her to be his representative for the divorce, which of course would be impossible and is just another assault on her already depressed mind.
This is a fairly long film at 2h 4min and this short review probably doesn't do it justice, not helped by my confusion over the sequence of events in places. But basically it's a story of how a narcissistic man emotionally destroys a decent fun-loving young woman. The female director clearly had a message to get across.