Along Came Love (2023 film)

Along Came Love (Le Temps d'aimer) is a 2023 Belgian-French drama film directed by Katell Quillévéré. It stars Anaïs Demoustier and Vincent Lacoste.

Plot
Madeleine, a working-class waitress, and François, a wealthy intellectual, meet in the years immediately following World War II and build a fragile but loving lifetime relationship even though each is carrying personal secrets: Madeleine's young son Daniel was conceived in a casual relationship with a German soldier, which left her branded as a "collabo" and exiled from her home community; while François is bisexual, and was previously in a relationship with a man.

Cast

 * Anaïs Demoustier as Madeleine Villedieu
 * Vincent Lacoste as François Delambre
 * Morgan Bailey as Jimmy
 * Hélios Karyo as Daniel (aged 5)
 * Josse Capet as Daniel (aged 10)
 * Paul Beaurepaire as Daniel (aged 18)

Production
The film was partially inspired by Quillévéré's own grandmother, who kept the secret that her oldest child had been conceived in an affair with a German soldier until very late in life. In a pre-premiere interview for the Cannes Film Festival, Quillévéré described the film as an attempt to "intertwine my passion for Maurice Pialat and Douglas Sirk," by making a film whose melodramatic, Sirkian plot was effectively in conflict with a more realistic and Pialat-like aesthetic not in keeping with the stylistic conventions of traditional melodrama.

The film went into production in spring 2022.

Distribution
The film premiered in the Cannes Premieres program at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where it was in contention for the Queer Palm.

Commercial release is currently slated for 29 November 2023.

Critical response
Wendy Ide of Screen Daily wrote that the film is "a solid, watchable drama that, while perhaps lacking some of the directorial flair of Heal the Living, evocatively tallies the costs of living on the wrong side of social and sexual conventions in the 1950s and 60s."

Fabien Lemercier of Cineuropa reviewed the film positively, writing that "Shot with a camera on the shoulder and amidst natural decor, the film takes a highly sensitive, controlled approach to offer up a modernised, nigh-on naturalistic variation on the classic melodramatic films. Paying equal attention to each of her (brilliantly acted) protagonists, Katell Quillévéré crafts a skilful work of a kind we don’t often see, spanning three time periods (preceded by a prologue of archive material and followed by an epilogue in the comforting tradition of the best films of this kind). A tale where happiness walks a tightrope above abysses, driven by a desire like that expressed by Stefan Zweig in Amok: 'It’s only through passion that you’ll get to know the world around you! Because where secrets abound, life begins too.'"

Jordan Mintzer of The Hollywood Reporter was more mixed, writing that "the film isn’t a total misfire, and it conveys a strong, at times moving message about the sacrifices required in love and marriage, especially during a period as chaotic as the post-war era. But it does so in ways that can feel overcooked and clichéd, relying more on melodramatic tropes than on the subtle drama found in Quillévéré’s previous works."