Loulou (film)

Loulou is a 1980 French drama film directed by Maurice Pialat and starring Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu. For Loulou, Pialat was nominated for the Golden Palm award at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.

Plot
In a disco with her husband André, a cultured man who owns a small advertising agency in which she works, Nelly meets Loulou, who is just out of jail and drunk. She spends the night with him in a hotel. The next day, André orders her out of his spacious apartment, so she moves into a hotel room with Loulou, who she supports as he does not believe in work. When she becomes pregnant, she rents a small apartment for them which Loulou fills with his criminal friends, who one night take her on a burglary. Her well-off brother tries to get her to see sense, but she just wants Loulou and their forthcoming child. When Loulou and his gang take her to Sunday lunch with his mother, there is a frightening confrontation with his psychotic brother-in-law who starts firing a shotgun. Realising at last the impossibility of having the child in such an environment, Nelly has an abortion. Loulou is hurt, but the film ends as it began with the two staggering home drunk.

Cast

 * Isabelle Huppert as Nelly
 * Gérard Depardieu as Loulou
 * Guy Marchand as André
 * Humbert Balsan as Michel
 * Bernard Tronczak as Rémy
 * Christian Boucher as Peirot
 * Frédérique Cerbonnet as Dominique
 * Jacqueline Dufranne as Mémère
 * Willy Safar as Jean-Louis
 * Agnès Rosier as Cathy
 * Patricia Coulet as Marité
 * Jean-Claude Meilland as Jean-Claude, le gars du casse
 * Patrick Playez as Thomas
 * Gérald Garnier as Lulu
 * Catherine De Guirchitch as Marie-Jo
 * Jean Van Herzeele as René
 * Patrick Poivey as Philippe
 * Xavier Saint-Macary as Bernard

Release
Loulou received its screening at the New York Film Festival on 8 October 1980. On 17 May 2016, Cohen Film Collection released Loulou on DVD as part of their "Films of Maurice Pialat" collection.

Reception
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 88%, based on eight reviews, with an average rating of 7.4 out of 10.

When the film was released on DVD, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian wrote "There is something a little dated about the movie's look now; it is, however, effortlessly watchable." In a negative review, Matthew Leyland of BBC writes, "So much potential for melodrama, yet Pialat never makes us feel like we're watching a soap opera."

Time Out called it, "challenging, absorbing example of the awkward beauty." On 8 February 2024, Time Out ranked it as number 67 on it's list of "The 100 best French movies of all time".