‘French Lover’ on Netflix, a Passable ‘Notting Hill’ Ripoff Starring Omar Sy

This week on All-But-UnGoogleable Netflix Movie Titles Theatre is French Lover, which is at least named after a satirical deodorant product in the movie. The man wearing said deodorant, or at least hawking it in commercials, is Omar Sy, the (mostly) action star the recent Shadow Force and massive Netflix global smash Lupin, here playing a Paris-based movie star in a romantic comedy alongside Sara Giraudeau. It’s a standard-issue opposites-attract movie that might have just enough charm to almost stir enough interest that we put down our phones and pay attention to it. That’s a low bar to clear, but that’s Netflix for you most days.

The Gist: Abel Camara (Sy) is talking right at us. Ugh? Yes. But don’t give up yet – the camera pulls back after a bit to reveal he’s shooting a corny-ass ad for French Lover. Not that Abel is happy about this. He’s a superstar film actor of the popular variety, not the award-winning/thespian variety, and he’d absolutely rather be the latter than anything, especially a face in a commercial for a product you can get at any old Walgreens. He’s the subject of all the tabloid slop – his relationships (he’s a bit of a ladykiller), his substance use (he’s not an addict, contrary to trashy headlines), and all that. 

Such overexposure is why he’s sensitive to any rando who might be pointing a phone in his general direction, e.g., Marion (Giraudeau), the waitress who’s supposed to be bringing him a drink as he sits alone in a booth. Maybe she’s taking a photo, but maybe she isn’t, and she vehemently denies it as she argues with THE Abel Camara, which upsets her boss, who fires her immediately after she quits. “She’s new and must be on her period,” the boss says in an apology to Abel. Yeesh. Abel feels bad so he coerces her into letting him give her a ride home, after which he talks his way up to her apartment, where she lives alone with her goliath dog and a pending divorce. She’s not only unimpressed with his fame, she’s reluctant to be friends with this guy. But they smoke a joint, and dodge her ex, and kiss, and before you know it, he’s crashing her little niece’s birthday party and entertaining a roomful of girls while the adults stand to the side, starstruck.

So they strike up an unlikely affair – a slightly mousy, no-nonsense generally unemployed woman, and a tall, ripped and handsome celebrity in a business that’s all nonsense. Case in point, Abel’s agent Camille’s (Pascale Arbillot) attempts to engineer a faux-girlfriend for him for PR purposes; he recently broke up with a modelesque actress, Lena (Cindy Bruna), and Camille’s trying to pair him with one of her new, young clients, who’ll look stunning in teensy dresses alongside him at premieres and whatnot. So that’s a dumb subplot ripe for misunderstandings to potentially undermine the honeymoon montage of Abel and Marion dancing, romping, snuggling and splashing in the tub together, all cute ‘n’ shit. Meanwhile, she deals with her jerk ex and dreams of owning a food truck, but inevitably the more interesting celebrity stuff takes precedent, like Abel’s finally being cast in a prestige film likely to earn him a fancy Cesar award (think Oscars, but French), but also means starring in a romance with his ex as the lead. Oh noes. Could a nonsense fight be on the horizon? The type that might break them up, however temporarily, considering the genre this movie falls into? Pas de spoilers!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Yep. Gender-switched Notting Hill. There’s even the scene where the superstar sits down to dinner with his girlfriend’s gobsmacked family.

Performance Worth Watching: Arbillot gives surprising dimension to what could’ve been a one-note, two-joke character – the enabling talent agent – in two notable scenes, one-on-one interactions with Giraudeau and Sy, that are the film’s most effective and earnest moments.

Memorable Dialogue: Marion tells her prospective suitor something he probably rarely hears:

Abel: Can we be friends?

Marion. NO.

Sex and Skin: Only the mildest of PG-13 bedroom smoochy-smoochy.

Our Take: French Lover shows little interest in subverting the norms of its genre. So little, it comes close to zero. Which leaves us contemplating the chemistry of its leads, Sy and Giraudeau acquitting themselves nicely of some of the script’s cliches, and getting this thing over the finish line – eventually, since it’s two hours long – in one piece. They’re charming enough to draw us in and make us feel moderately invested in their happiness. These characters’ emotions sometimes feel like they’ve arrived via free overnight shipping from Amazon, but the cast gives them just enough oomph to inspire us to care. But only just.

The movie’s stronger bits stretch the rom-com formula enough to further endear us – the screenplay acknowledges how Abel’s outsized presence and public persona inevitably pushes his less famous partner into the margins, and Marion also isn’t afraid to call him on his BS movie-star entitlement. A few scenes with Arbillot’s manager character bring things a little closer to Earth emotionally. And Giraudeau — who resembles a more approachable, less airy Dakota Johnson –doesn’t have a lot to work with on the page, but if her softspoken characterization of Marion wasn’t at least relatable (see also: Anne Hathaway in The Idea of You), the movie would all but cease to function.

Of course, we have to work through several stereotypical rom-com scenes: Marion feeling out of place in a ridiculous dress at a premiere, Marion reading the comments (“Do I really look like a ‘depressed sparrow’?”) as Abel advises her to ignore them, Abel trying to impress Marion by doing his own stunts on a movie set and getting kicked in the nards by a horse, etc. French Lover might be more memorable if it leaned a little more into spoofing the movie business (remember how Julia Roberts’ character played an astronaut in the movie within Notting Hill? That Abel stars in a film called Alone in Space feels like homage, or pastiche, or maybe just a ripoff) and leaned a little further away from break-up-and-make-up familiarities, but alas. It’s content to meet expectations and be more watchable than terrible in the process. Here’s to small victories.

Our Call: Maybe one of the smallest victories, to be honest. But a victory nonetheless. STREAM IT with at-best modest expectations.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.