Sorry Angel [Plaire, aimer et courir vite] ****(Pierre Deladonchamps, Vincent Lacoste, Denis Podalydès, Thomas Gonzalez, 2018) 

Christophe Honoré’s 2018 French romantic drama film Sorry Angel stars Pierre Deladonchamps as a gay author living and working in Paris in 1993, who fatefully meets an aspiring film-maker (Vincent Lacoste) in Brittany.

Writer/ director Christophe Honoré’s 2018 French romantic drama film Sorry Angel [Plaire, aimer et courir vite] stars Pierre Deladonchamps as Jacques, a gay author living and working in Paris in 1993, who fatefully meets 22-year-old Arthur (Vincent Lacoste) during a work event in Brittany. The film was awarded the Louis Delluc Prize for Best Film in 2018.

Jacques is a 1993 Parisian writer and single father in his mid-thirties trying to maintain his sense of romance and humour in spite of the turmoil in his life, living life to the full with a fervent appreciation for the arts and his string of young lovers, while trying to come to terms with his health’s steady decline through AIDS, which is also severely affecting his ex-lover Marco (Thomas Gonzalez). 

Jacques lives in a Paris apartment on the floor below his good friend Mathieu (Denis Podalydès), an older gay man and newspaper editor. Jacques is a part-time father to his young son Loulou (Tristan Farge), while also looking after Marco.

While in Brittany for a work event, Jacques meets student and camp counsellor Arthur ((Vincent Lacoste), an aspiring film director in his early twenties, who is exploring his relatively newfound gay lifestyle and keen to escape his provincial existence.

Sorry Angel [Plaire, aimer et courir vite] is a bitter-sweet, beautifully done French romantic drama, warm and wise. There’s a lot of talk in the French fashion, some of it unfathomable, most of it very entertaining. The French views are enticing, promising a lovely life. Don’t the French live well (and complain a lot)?Perfectly cast Pierre Deladonchamps is superb in a fearless performance, subtle and quietly charming, Vincent Lacoste and Denis Podalydès are excellent, the cocky, cocksure puppy and the been there, dun that older guy, and Sophie Letourneur is good as Isabelle, the mother of Loulou.

Christophe Honoré writes intelligently and directs beautifully. His film treads old ground, maybe, but finds fresh life, the same things to say but in an attractive, appealing new way. The film is sad, tragic even, but it doesn’t wallow. There’s a positive spin, a glass half full idea going on. The story is all about trying to make the best of what there is for as long as possible, trying to maintain a sense of romance and humour in the face of turmoil and adversity.

The original French title Plaire, aimer et courir vite means ‘To please, to love, and to run fast’.

Filming took place over 36 days from June to August 2017, in Binic (Côtes-d’Armor, Brittany), in Rennes (Brittany), in Paris, and in Amsterdam,

It competed for the Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, where it was screened on 10 May 2018, when it was released in France.