JUST THE TWO OF US
L’Amour et les forêts
North American Premiere | France | 2023 | Drama, Thriller | 105 min | In French with English subtitles
Directed by: Valérie Donzelli
Written by: Valérie Donzelli, Audrey Diwan
Based on the Book by: Éric Reinhardt
Produced by: Édouard Weil, Alice Girard (Rectangle Productions), Valérie Donzelli, Mina Driouche (Les Films de Françoise)
Cinematography: Laurent Tangy
Film Editing: Pauline Gaillard
Original Score: Gabriel Yared
Cast: Virginie Efira (Blanche), Melvil Poupaud (Grégoire), Dominique Reymond (the lawyer), Romane Bohringer (Delphine), Virginie Ledoyen (Candice), Marie Rivière (Blanche’s mother), Laurence Côte (Catherine), Guang Huo (Tony)
International Sales: Goodfellas
French teacher Blanche Renard is charmed by suave banker Grégoire Lamoureux the moment they meet at a party. Their instantaneous connection is as passionate as it is romantic and leads to a whirlwind courtship and marriage. It’s not until Grégoire is transferred from their native Normandy to a bank in the less-quaint town of Metz that his true colors begin to emerge. Separated from her beloved twin sister and mother, Blanche lives in a kind of forced isolation, slowly unravelling. Backed by an extraordinary supporting cast, Virginie Efira and Melvil Poupaud are pitch-perfect as predator and prey in Valerie Donzelli‘s chilling domestic psychological thriller, Just the Two of Us.
Writer/director Valérie Donzelli launched her career as an actor in the title role of Sandrine Veysset’s Martha Martha (2001), which premiered at the Cannes Director’s Fortnight. She has since appeared in more than 60 films, including Anne Fontaine’s In His Hands (COLCOA 2006) and the TV series Clara Sheller (2005). She made her feature directorial debut with Queen of Hearts (2009), which was presented at the Locarno Film Festival; her second feature, Declaration of War (2011), premiered at the Cannes Film Festival; and her TV series Nona and Her Daughters had its International Premiere at COLCOA 2021. Just the Two of Us, her seventh feature, was co-written with fellow-director Audrey Diwan (Happening, 2021), adapted from Eric Reinhardt’s award-winning novel L’Amour et les forêts. It premiered in the Cannes Premiere section of this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
