Living On Love Alone

As it’s only receiving a small release, you’ll have to be quick to catch this modest but impressive second feature from a promising new voice in French cinema, Isabelle Czajka. It follows the life – the plight, you might say – of a mildly rebellious young Paris arts graduate (a lusty Anaïs Demoustier) dealing with the disillusioning realities of the job market, flat hunting, her ambivalent sexual encounters and the thrill and threat of an enigmatic but attractive new boyfriend (Pio Marmaï, pictured) who promises her a route out of the rut but also one leading into waters far too deep for her to manage.

Czajka has a deceptive style: her fresh, easy observational direction of the Parisian scenes is built on, but never obscures, a keen, ironic take on the contradictory seductions and pitfalls of metropolitan life and the vulnerability to them of her young heroine. Likewise, the uncluttered, naturalistic performances she gets from her actors – not least Christine Brücher’s as the mother – aid a fluid concision in her storytelling. Allowing for the anti-escapist climax, set near the French-Spanish border, it’s a very sprightly, engaging and thoughtful romance.