Film review: Moi qui t’aimais explores troubled passion between star couple Signoret and Montand
Diane Kurys’s gossipy, subtly performed biopic portrays the last years of a legendary relationship rife with destructive compulsions
Moi qui t'aimais
Visions Ouest presents Moi qui t'aimais at Alliance Française Vancouver on March 11 at 7 pm
FOR FANS OF SUMPTUOUS emotional masochism, this film from veteran filmmaker Diane Kurys whistles through the final 12 years of Simone Signoret’s marriage to Yves Montand, until her death in 1985.
The relationship was legendary, like a French Burton and Taylor, but Montand was also a legendary cheat, and his affair with Marilyn Monroe is never far from the surface. In fact it bookends everything, with Signoret’s public fortitude over the matter finally giving way to the private perspective, voiced as death looms.
It’s the mystery at the heart of Moi qui t’aimais. Why did she stay with Montand? The clue is in the title—duh—and it would take a more serious two-hour effort to make something profound of a story that’s only really distinguished by its extraordinary characters. We’re left with a solid biopic that’s just as gossipy and salacious as the viewer wants it to be, albeit with an aptly subtle performance from Marina Foïs as a brilliant woman whose physical decline, aided by drink and other compulsions, was swift and also very public. Signoret turned that to her advantage with 1977’s Madame Rosa, something of a comeback and a show of strength for a once great beauty, and Kurys’s film naturally dwells on that triumph, while Montand pours ever more effort and fuss into maintaining his stardom—and his physique.
“He’s terrified of aging” is the film’s grand conclusion, so again: don’t come looking for depth. Moi qui t'aimais also has some fun with the couple’s wavering and maybe fashionable politics, and makes a running joke of his wealthy brand of socialisme. The always watchable Roschdy Zem matches his partner’s performance and he has a charisma of his own without really embodying Montand. But then, who possibly could? 
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