PAUL & PAULETTE TAKE A BATH (2024) Jethro Massey

Seen in Venice 81.

I want to emphasize right away that the film is delightful. It doesn't try to tell a huge story, but simply a love story, and that's a shame because everything the director created around the two protagonists is much better than the story itself.

If you think of the plot, that is, of a nerdy boy in love with a streetwise and slightly crazy bisexual girl who nonchalantly gives her away, then a quarter of the American indie films of the last fifteen years come to mind.

I find this to be the film's weakness: the need to tell a love story that feels a bit forced. The story of Paul and Paulette's friendship (their two names are a nice touch) would have been more enjoyable, without conflating the film with the "romantic rejection" genre.

The two actors are very good and always believable. The occasional naiveté typical of a first film is compensated for by many intuitions, such as the photo of Stalin as a young man that she keeps in her wallet, the historical research, and the hairs on Elvis's dick.

PS anyway, in the end she stays with her girlfriend. Long live the woke thought.