Drama · Romance · Comedy
French (Rois et Reine)
2004 · Directed by Arnaud Desplechin · 150 min
Two people in Paris and the provinces, once lovers, are pulled back into each other's lives by a family crisis. One is a gallery director about to remarry; the other a musician whose life has gone badly off course. The film moves between farce, grief and romance, sometimes within one scene.
Why it matters in cinema history
A key work of 2000s French art cinema, it shows the New Wave's freedom of tone being carried into a generation of dense, novelistic family dramas.
Watch with intention
Treat it as two films in two registers, and watch how the editing makes each story comment on the other.
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