Pas son genre (2014) User Reviews

A promising film

[corentindhoop · 6/10 · 2 September 2014]

Very good film with excellent actors. However, some scenes deserved to be more developed. Why do we know so little about the books Clement wrote, and about his new book "Le nouvel Eros" ? Why is it we cannot throw a connection between the way Clement reflects on love in his own life and the way he theorizes it in his books?

Also, the main characters of the film remain unaltered. We don't see Clement evolve from his lack of emotional response and skepticism. We don't see how Jenifer tried to cope her sense of romanticism and ideal with the profile of Clement. We only know Jenifer went away abruptly. No final explanation, no interrelations between universes that keep on moving the same line straight until the end.

Sop Me If You've Heard It

[writers_reign · 8/10 · 15 November 2014]

Lucas Belvaux is clearly not particular where his plots come from nor has he any desire to attempt originality so this film may only be judged on the performances. It would take far too much time and use up far too much space to name-check all the films dealing with relationships across social and/or intellectual divides so I'll restrict myself to just two, Marion Vernoux's outstanding Rien a faire in which ill-educated housewife Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and recently redundant business executive Patrick Dell'Isola meet at a job centre and embark on a relationship despite both being married, and, much closer to home, Claude Goretta's La Dentelliere in which Isabelle Huppert, works in a hairdressing salon and meets student Yves Benyton. Here Emilie Dequenne is the hairdresser who meets Philosopher and Lecturer Loic Corbery who, in the course of their relationship, gives her books to read not least Doesteovsky's The Idiot, which might be attempting to tell her something. Leaving the silver screen behind for a moment we can find here echoes of both Scott Fitzgerald who provided his lover Sheila Graham with a reading list and Artie Shaw who did the same for one of his wives, Ava Gardner. Should we seek a counterpart for the emotionally cold Corbery we need look no further than Claude Sautet's Un Coeur en Hiver in which Daniel Auteuils' violin maker/restorer was very much on a par with Manu Beart's classical musician socially but light years away in terms of emotional warmth. In spite of all this 'borrowing' Lucas Belvaux is almost sure to reap the rewards of Emily Dequennes brilliant performance with the Comedy Francaise's Corberry only a whisker behind. Brownie points too for setting the whole thing in unfashionable Arras where the bring the sidewalks in at 4 p.m. Performance-led and all the better for it this is a must-see.

My type of film

[jromanbaker · 8/10 · 27 February 2020]

I caught this by accident on France 3 and to my knowledge it has not been released in England. A great pity when we still can see or buy Rohmer, and the amount of intelligent dialogue reminded me a lot of that director. I do not know the director of this film, but judging by what I saw he is a very good director indeed. No music except when needed, and I trusted his judgement on that. Above all else he peeled away other characters to the two main characters played by two superb actors, Emilie Duguenne and Loic Corbery. I did not know their names and have seen them in no other films. Quite a revelation, and bizarrely for a hetero normative scenario the last song was sung with force like a Gay anthem. The film on Judy Garland with its similar defiant ending failed in comparison. Also I found it sad that Loic Corbery has not made other films. French cinema needs a man of good looks, intelligence and presence. He should be working for many other fine directors, and alas for most audiences theatre work does not travel. The film did not sadden me. These two, however much they battle with the eternal problem of love are not compatible. He is of the mind; she is of the natural force of living, hence the last song. It is not a sexist film and it shows two equals, but equal in their own ways, but not together. Towards the end they are watching each other all the time with a nervous, but all the same a kind of love and eye movement alone between them shows that it cannot last, but the final scene shows how both will suffer and eventually move on. Emilie Duquenne shows clearly that she knows herself and that there will be no total breakdown for her. As for Loic Corbery I sense a closing in and possibly a drying up inside in the future. His unspoken pain was beautifully conveyed. What we call love has baffled civilization for a long time and films on it are not clichés but a portrayal of what love can be and what it is not, or if sadly it is an illusion that we all need. A philosophical question indeed. A final mystery. Why shown in so few cinemas ? That does sadden me.

Rise and fall of a romance

[searchanddestroy-1 · 30 April 2014]

I love this bittersweet feature telling the usual and so realistic love story between a man and a woman. Emilie Dequesne is terrific, as the romantic Young woman, so idealistic for the man she seeks and falls in love with. The Young actor is also very good. The characters are all outstanding, so the study of them all, the way of describing this story that so many of us have already been through. One day or another.

I highly recommend this film, this perfect example of what french movie can give us.

Lucas Belvaux is also a director whose I Watch all the movies. I am rarely disappointed.

Fortunately it has Emile Dequenne

[johnpierrepatrick · 6/10 · 29 February 2020]

(Love) story of 2 people belonging to different worlds, namely working-class North of France and Parisian philosophy society. However this societal movie makes full use of cliché, loosing some credibility, and its characters does not really evolve, mainly the man character. Luckily, Emilie Dequenne is a ray of light, almost like always, and carry the movie with her performance!

Food for thought

[juan-falgueras · 8/10 · 8 May 2021]

Yet not so deep view of the personages, the philosopher's philosophy doesn't exist nor changes in any way, but is simply is a facade for a personage. She, after being a mature and strong woman falls in a blind relationship and doesn't see what seems to be evident, as he doesn't change at all in any moment along the affair

The end is simple. I would expect a deeper analysis of the main personage vision of life, but it seems to not exist at all except for a pathetic and shallow, even absurd, egocentrism without any interest in living.

It started good, but...meh

[AylaEverdeen · 4/10 · 23 May 2020]

It started promising, like how two people from different worlds coming together could be a thing...I even started falling for Jennifer, because she's straight foward and clear and have some ideas that made me think she'll get to Clément...But he remains so arrogant and impassible, like judging everything and everyone from his throne...I believed for a second that he was gonna see something different and special in Jennifer when he loosens up a bit in the karaoke, but then, she confesses she's deeply in love with him (bit intense and out of the blue, in my opinion), then starts freaking out about the relationship and him not loving her back, but using all the clichés for typical paranoid girlfriend, instead of talking seriously to this person about her insecurities... It left a pretty bad taste in my mouth and I don't think this movie added much to my life.

Total cliché

[DuniaHania · 4/10 · 12 June 2019]

Abnoxious and sexist. France has still a long way to go in terms of overcoming its inherent sexism. From the time to when the Revolutionary Government guillotined Olympe de Gouges, to their current incapability at saying 'people' or 'human' instead of man/'homme'. This movie is a cliché about how a "rational" intellectual man confronts nature/feelings and emotions through a romance with a less educated working-class girl (blue eye shadow, big ear rings, occasional glitter...). He has to take all steps forward to conquer her and she is the gate keeper of her morality until she gives in to sex and of course love. Their story is so cliché and yet the movie failed to make it believable... She is an object. Her beauty is discussed, admired. The movie obviously fails the Bechtel test. She tells him that jealousy is an indicator of love! Looking for the mythological man that was changed by love. Have you met this myhtological man? He's in the movies, over and over.

Not my cup of tea

[YohjiArmstrong · 16 November 2015]

NOT MY TYPE is the story of a mismatched romance between a Parisian philosopher, exiled to teach in quiet Arras, and the sunny single- mother hairdresser he meets there. At first it seems like an amusing romcom about opposites attracting, but then the jokes stop. Then it seems like it might become a bittersweet, realistic love story full of regrets and misunderstandings, but then it runs out of ideas. At a certain point the relationship simply shudders to a halt and we're left to watch the same scenes over and over again (he endlessly reads to her from classic French literature but it doesn't matter because nothing seems to change). It doesn't help that the film is not much shy of two hours when it could easily have been 90 minutes. The leads are good, the setting unusual, the camera-work excellent and it benefits from being laugh-out-loud French (the philosopher even wears a black turtleneck sweater) but its failure to progress or come to a real conclusion leaves more questions than answers.

noble intentions

[Kirpianuscus · 30 September 2023]

I saw this film for Loic Corbery. In high measure, he remains, near the beautiful work of Emile Dequenne, the only real motif to see it. The story is nice, the premise not so bad but the web of cliches changes everything at a sort of demonstration of too familiar things becoming not exactly boring but far by expectations.

Two people of different conditions. Their love beaing not exactly enough for a solid relation and for decent form of happiness.

In essence, nothing more.

Good acting, noble intentions and all what you can imagine scene by scene .

Sure, a sort of remind about fireworks and acceptance of a situation who can not be changed.