As the Boston French Film Festival winds down at the MFA, Mr. Pinault grows frantic as the window of opportunity to see the small-budget cinematic gems of his native country shuts for another year. After picking through the festival schedule, Shall We Kiss, a romantic comedy by one of France’s up-and-coming directors Emmanuel Mouret, seemed to be the most appealing offering, so we braved the Sunday crowds at the MFA to sit in a packed audience of Francophiles and Francophones for 96 minutes.
Shall We Kiss is a cute, likable movie about adultery (only the French could make a cute, likable movie about adultery). Emilie and Gabriel are sexy French strangers who meet in the streets of Nantes and have dinner together. At the end of the night, Emilie refuses to kiss Gabriel goodnight after they both admit to being in relationships, and she then spends the rest of the night (and the movie) telling him a story about why she thinks kissing can be a dangerous thing.
The narrative then turns to Emilie’s story about Judith and Nicolas, two close friends who develop a peculiar tentative intimacy — with kissing, then sex — that grows into full-blown love. Judith is scared to hurt her husband Claudio, so Nicolas enlists his freshly-ex-girlfriend Caline in a wacky scheme to attract Claudio so Judith and Nicolas can be together.
Emilie’s story is light-hearted and witty, but the real passion is between her and Gabriel. The night wears on and their unkissed-kiss weighs heavier. In the last scene, Emilie reveals her place in the Judith and Nicolas saga, and the movie suddenly becomes a whole lot more clever than the French sex farce of the previous 95 minutes.
