Contrary to the wisdom of many travel brochures, Friday night gridlock in Parisian traffic really isn’t any more glamorous than Friday night gridlock anywhere else, but Vendredi Soir is a movie, so sitting in a traffic-jam surrounded by enraged urbanites is an experience brimming with romantic possibility.
This typically sparsely-plotted fable from Claire Denis (Trouble Every Day, Beau Travail) is centred on Laure (Lemercier) who hooks up with Jean (Lindon) for the night. And that’s it really. There’s no sparkling exchange of ideas or magical sense of connection like in Before Sunrise. The couple aren’t overwhelmingly gorgeous specimens either.
However, if the film is short on beautiful people and incident, it’s still a masterclass in human behaviour. Every small movement and gesture is lovingly captured like nothing else in the world mattered, and Denis subtly creates a beguiling witching-hour effect whereby a tacky pizzeria and an illicit room in a backstreet knocking-shop feel positively Arabesque.
Despite the rather slight and familiar premise then, this is an enchanting, quintessentially French affair, made all the more remarkable when you realise how much of the action takes place in a Peugeot hatchback.