Movie Review: 'Simple comme Sylvain' or 'The Nature of Love'

Doomed from the start

Monia Chokri’s latest hit gave us beautiful colours, touching music, and many funny quips, but ultimately failed to provide what we were waiting for: love. A rom-com sans rom is missing the aspect that gives it beauty and meaning, the aspect that makes you cry when it’s soul-crushingly sad and electrically elating and that makes you laugh when the characters find themselves in absurd but somehow relatable situations. Perhaps Chokri wasn’t going for a generic rom-com; but if she was going for a film with deeper social commentary, intrigue, or emotional spark, then she unfortunately missed the mark.

Spoiler alert for what follows, obviously.

Simple comme Sylvain follows the love story of a chic Montreal philosophy professor (Sophia) and a down-to-earth guy from rural Quebec (Sylvain). It follows the Titanic trope—a classy, rich girl and a grizzled, affectionate boy from meagre means—and this works, at first. The beginning is magical. Beautiful cinematography from André Turpin gives life to Sophia and Sylvain’s rapidly developing relationship. The audience empathetically views Sophia’s predicament. Her snooty and uninteresting Montreal boyfriend can only provide intellectual excitement; he gives Sophia a philosophy book as a present—not very hot. On the other hand, Sylvain is gorgeous, funny, casual, and deeply caring. And he is ruggedly, unimaginably sexy (or so we are led to believe). The choice is easy for Sophia.

But the relationship has its difficulties: Sophia likes to correct Sylvain’s grammar, revealing some not-so-tolerant classist attitudes. Sylvain believes in conspiracy theories. Sophia’s friends are wine snobs who speak English around Sylvain, even though they know he doesn’t understand the language. Sylvain makes disparaging remarks about Arabs killing innocents. Where the film falls flat is its unwillingness to deal with these tough, interesting contradictions.

Will Sylvain show Sophia that her empathy for ethnic and gender minorities must also extend to different socio-economic backgrounds? Will Sophia show Sylvain that his comments about Arabs are offensive? Will they grow to detest one another due to their starkly different world views? (That at least would be interesting.) Alas, no. The schism in the relationship, which came from an out-of-character outburst from Sylvain and some particularly demeaning comments from Sophia about his family, was resolved not through communication, empathy, and character development, but through some hot bondage sex.

Is that all Sylvain and Sophia have in common, corporeal desire? I don’t think so. I think the beginning of the film showed us their humanity, their love. A real relationship, built on empathy and hard work, could have been born. Or a crazy, spiteful relationship could have been born and could have propelled the plot of the film. I had faith in Sophia and Sylvain. I don’t require happy endings, and I certainly don’t need films to be moral guides that resolve all issues, leaving the characters more enlightened at the end than they were at the start. A movie can create beauty and meaning through the conflict between true love and irreconcilable values. But I fear the true love was missing.

Simple comme Sylvain was not doomed from the start; rather Sylvain and the Sophia’s tryst was. A couple that puts in zero effort to deal with their differences will fail and will make for a flat narrative. And since they never expressed to one another real remorse or real passion—aside from sex—I never got invested. When Sylvain proposed, I didn’t care. When Sophia ultimately rescinded the offer, I didn’t care. (But I was surprised; Kudos to Chokri for that.) Not once in the movie did a character gain empathy for another’s viewpoint (save one small exchange between Sylvain’s sister and Sophia). Snob boyfriend stayed snobby. Sophia never apologized for her comments and never expressed to Sylvain why she found him so unbelievably wonderful. And Sylvain stayed simple.