Revoir Julie

When I’m not obsessing over WLW films, I’m obsessing over Canadian culture and Canadian films. And let me tell you, there are Canadian films and then there are Canadian films. Revoir Julie, with its bilingualism, actors you’ve never heard of, small-town setting and conflict that can be described as moderate at best falls firmly into the latter category.

The two leads in Revoir Julie are named Julie and Juliet. Because apparently the writer’s creativity got a little stuck on the naming portion. Juliet has just suffered a break-up and decides to get in touch with her old friend Julie whom she has not spoken to in 15 years. The two friends reconnect and their friendship turns into something more. Both struggle with this sudden appearance of gay feelings . The presence of a homophobic parent exacerbates this struggle. Ultimately, the presence of true love and the absence of any significant conflict means that Julie and Juliet get their happy ending.

The events of Revoir Julie take place over two days. Julie and Juliet certainly had a lot of emotions within a very compressed time frame. This very small amount of time means it has that romance trope where the first time these two characters do anything physical, it’s full-on sex. Within this minuscule time frame, one or both of these characters have had to come to terms with their feelings towards one another and their hitherto unrealized queerness. With those major life changes, maybe stopping at kissing would be fine. But nah, they just engage in full-on sex despite the fact that it’s at least one character’s first time with a woman. That just seems like an unnecessarily busy 24 hours.

Overall though, I think the sex scene was well done and quite sweet. It’s sometimes awkward and Julie and Juliet laugh together at its awkwardness. This feels realistic given the abrupt change of their relationship. It’s charming and adds to their chemistry that they can laugh about all of this. I like to see that in sex scenes; sex not being wholly serious and instead showing two people who can and do laugh together. The scene respectfully cuts away quick enough that Revoir Julie earns a G rating. Instead, we see paintings on the wall of women who’ve been animated to smirk, raise an eyebrow or in one case, a painting where one woman is playing with another’s nipple. This was admittedly a weird choice and not in finding with the rest of the movie’s tone. But certainly was a novel and memorable way to end a sex scene.

Revoir Julie is a relaxing sit that borders on boring. On the plus side, neither the writers nor in-universe characters take anything that’s happening too seriously. This isn’t one of those romances where they’re all fatalistic and melodramatic about this person they’ve been with for two days. On the other hand, I could’ve used a touch more drama. The closest we get to drama is the sudden appearance of Julie’s homophobic mother who disapproves of their life choices etc but she just sort of exits the situation and that plot is done. While I applaud the fact that Julie didn’t give a shit about her mother’s opinion, the fact that the scene sort of came and went and didn’t really affect anything made it feel a little pointless.

The one thing that keeps me from calling this movie pointless altogether is that it is very cute and sweet. It’s just so… Canadian about everything in ways that are both positive and negative. Revoir Julie is a sweet, inoffensive, feel-good movie. It’s not a must-see of the lesbian movie canon but not one that pissed me off either. There are certainly a lot worse ways to spend 90 minutes than watching some French Canadian women suddenly realize they’re in love and get a conflict-free happy ending.

Overall rating: 6.3/10

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