Two English Girls (1971)

Two English Girls
Directed by Francois Truffaut
Written by Francois Truffaut and Jean Gruault from a novel by Henri-Pierre Roche
1971/France
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

Claude Roc: I’d rather not be between you, I’d like to be able to look at both of you.

Truffaut looks at a love triangle from the distaff side. It’s pretty but it’s no Jules and Jim (1962).

The film is set in France and Wales at the turn of the last century. Young Frenchman Claude (Jean-Pierre Leaud) is an aspiring writer an a bit of a bon vivant.  He meets Ann (Kika Markham), an attractive and sensitive English woman.  Claude is smitten with Anne immediately.  She invites him to the estate of her mother and younger sister Muriel (Stacey Tendeter) in Wales.  Muriel has an eye condition that troubles her sporadically through the movie.  The three young people have fun together. Anne pushes Claude into the arms of Muriel.  Mother suggests the couple take a year separation and see how they feel about a marriage then.

Claude returns to Paris and within six months is living the high life with multiple mistresses. He breaks off the engagement.  Later Claude runs into Anne who is now an aspiring sculptor. They hook up but what about Muriel? What about Anne?  What about poor Claude?

First, the good and there’s quite a bit of it.  Truffaut and Nestor Almendros create scenes of luminous beauty, the cast is wonderful, and so is the Georges Delerue score.  The story explores religious and sexual attitudes of the period, sisterly love, guilt, and a host of other themes.  But for me it seemed like Jules and Jim, with the two ladies subbing for the gents and Leaud as the object of desire. The film lacks the sheer energy and playfulness that helped to make the earlier love-triangle melodrama a true classic.  I hate it when people can’t make up their minds and kind of torture each other for years.  If you are not an old curmudgeon you might like this film.