The Nature of Love

The Nature of Love (Simple comme Sylvain) is a 2023 Canadian romantic comedy-drama film directed by Monia Chokri.

The film had its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival on 18 May 2023.

Plot
University professor Sophia has a comfortable life and a stable but unexciting marriage to Xavier. That is upended when she meets and is attracted to Sylvain, a blue-collar construction contractor whom the couple hires to renovate their summer home.

Cast

 * Magalie Lépine-Blondeau as Sophie
 * Pierre-Yves Cardinal as Sylvain
 * Monia Chokri as Françoise
 * Francis-William Rhéaume as Xavier
 * Steve Laplante as Philippe
 * Marie-Ginette Guay as Sylvie
 * Micheline Lanctôt as Madeleine
 * Guillaume Laurin as Olivier
 * Linda Sorgini as Guylaine
 * Mathieu Baron as Kevin
 * Christine Beaulieu as Karine
 * Lubna Playoust as Joséphine
 * Guy Thauvette as Pierre
 * Karelle Tremblay as Camélia

Production
Production on the film was first announced in fall 2022.

Release
The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival on 18 May 2023.

Critical response
Catherine Bray of Variety praised the film, writing that "The film is impeccably cast. As Sophia, Magalie Lépine Blondeau (whom Chokri first directed ten years ago in her hugely successful short An Extraordinary Person) is wonderful, gifted with great comic timing and a particular knack for telegraphing that sense of someone who knows they’re making a huge mistake, but are compelled to go ahead and make it anyway. That’s handy, since it is perhaps the character’s defining trait. But it’s hard to imagine Blondeau’s role working as well as it does without the right actor as Sylvain, the kind of guy whose compulsive sexual charm is enough, by itself, to swamp every other more cautious instinct. Luckily, Cardinal has form here, having previously sizzled in Xavier Dolan’s Tom at the Farm, as the burly agricultural man’s man to Dolan’s fashionable city boy. Call it screen presence, magnetism, charisma — Cardinal has it."

Savina Petkova of Cineuropa wrote that "Even if The Nature of Love can’t shake off the pessimistic thought that all instances of a heterosexual, monogamous love life are doomed to repeat the same cycle of infatuation/marriage/depletion of desire, it offers a special, nuanced take on love and what love can be. It even suggests a canon of studies on romance – a topic equally neglected in philosophy and ethics – with quotes by the likes of Plato, bell hooks and Vladimir Jankélévitch, but without being didactic in any way. Overall, Chokri’s new film is as confident as its protagonist, a woman who knows how to articulate her desires, to surrender and to leave them behind, when it feels right.”

Maxance Vincent of InSession Film wrote that the movie is "one of the funniest and most heartbreaking movies you’ll see all year, and it cements Chokri as one to watch as a daring auteur who never made the same film twice and will seemingly continue pushing the boundaries of what modern Québec cinema can – and should – be."