Lie With Me - BFI Flare

A moving film that explores first love and heartbreak within the gorgeous backdrop of rural France, Lie With Me features a famous writer and novelist returning to his hometown after a long absence. When Stéphane Belcourt is invited to be a brand ambassador for a local cognac label celebrating its 200th anniversary, he returns to the place he left decades ago and unintentionally discovers a connection to his secret first love. Memories of passion and pain return to him and the story moves between two teenagers handling their repressed desires, alongside an adult Stéphane struggling to cope with the weight of his past.

Olivier Peyon’s film is an introspective look into powerful emotions never expressed in the beautiful backdrop of the French landscape. Whilst a love story that travels backwards and forwards in time is nothing new, Lie With Me feels fresh in its willingness to show the vulnerabilities of each character. Stéphane is now an out and proud gay man and is able to speak on his identity through his writing talents, having published many novels. Actor Guillaume de Tonquédec offers the viewer a fantastic performance as Stéphane, allowing his innermost thoughts to be accessible on camera whilst barely uttering a line. He acts with ferocious emotion as Stéphane seeks to handle his grief. His story weaves in and out of the torment of his first love with popular classmate, Thomas, and he decides to find out what happened to him after that summer thirty-five years later. What he discovers comes in the form of plenty of plot twists that throw him off the scent.

The overwhelming countryside contrasts to the emotional turmoil that Stéphane and Thomas are experiencing, which is expertly conveyed through the electric chemistry between actors Jérémy Gillet and Julien De Saint Jean who portray the teenagers. Viewers can feel the humidity of a nostalgic summer in the air as both boys embrace their sexuality for the first time. This is a version of France arguably never seen before with this lens, with bristling fields and breath-taking waters offering a different type of romance. Everything that the camera captures is beautiful in many senses of the word. As Stéphane and Thomas encounter each other more and more on screen, those watching come to understand the true meaning of their summer of love through visual artistry as well as verbal. This is truly a film that speaks on the process of learning to embrace personal identity and overcoming the personal shame of same-sex attraction.

Despite the beauty of the landscape and sharp colour grading, the powerfully real performances of each actor are exacerbated by a very subtle and witty script. Raw emotive scenes are injected with brief moments of humour that allow the story to feel deeply real. There are moments that are surprising and remove the film from the predictable romance genre. The realistic backdrop of the film, combined with unglamourised dialogue and actors, keep Peyon’s film feeling fresh. It is an authentic portrayal of a warm summer in love. Conversely, scenes with an older Stéphane look and feel colder, as the landscape loses its bright colours and the screen is filled with images of grey skies and fog. The ability to weave these two separate images into one film is genius and fully encapsulates Stéphane’s journey to self respect.

Lie With Me represents the courage of dealing with heartbreak whilst searching for answers. It is a clear and poignant representation of a tired French man seeking to embrace his sexuality and rid himself of personal anxieties. Those alongside him give incredible performances and a devastatingly good plot makes this a film not to be missed.