Along Came Love

1947: When Madeleine (Anaïs Demoustier) meets the young student François (Vincent Lacoste) on a Normandy beach, their love immediately feels like a matter of course - as if it were providence. She works as a waitress in a hotel restaurant. He comes from a rich, educated middle-class family. It soon becomes clear what Madeleine, who has fathered a young son with a Nazi soldier interned in France, wants to leave behind by following the young man. However, what François is trying to escape from by interweaving Madeleine's fate with his own is only revealed piece by piece when the African-American G.I. Jimmy (Morgan Bailey) appears on the scene.... Restless, multi-layered, wild and full of heart, like love itself, this love story, with which director and screenwriter Katell Quillévéré made it into the Official Selection of the Cannes Film Festival - and competed there for the Queer Palm. "Working from her own screenplay, co-written with Gilles Taurand, [Katell] Quillévéré charts the course of this mini family as the years fly by. Each new episode is written, shot and acted with such vividness that the lulls between narrative reveals never feel frustrating. [...] Period details present with subtle authority through not just costume and production design, but by a social conservatism that colours characters who are too ashamed to admit core truths. Maddy and François are bound by an intimate understanding that transcends words so that their scenes are textured, full of glances and harmonious movements. Dialogue is written as a dance, never as exposition. Heads are kept down for as long as is humanly possible which, it turns out, is not forever. Along Came Love essays a type of bond where shared secrets eventually erupt, causing both tragedy and release.(Sophie Monks Kaufman, in: Little White Lies)