You and the Night

Revellers assemble for an orgy, but nobody gets quite what they expect in this perverse, self-consciously stylised French cross between Jean-Paul Sartre and ‘The Breakfast Club’. Hosts for the evening are chic couple Ali (Kate Moran) and Matthias (Niels Schneider), whose open relationship has its dark shadows. The guests include Eric Cantona (with stick-on appendage) as ‘The Stud’ and Alain Fabien Delon as ‘The Teen’.

Directed by first-timer Yann Gonzalez, ‘You and the Night’ philosophises about the neurotic yearning behind sexual adventure rather than delivering much upfront action. It unfolds in a cinephile delirium – suggesting at times Jean Cocteau, Kenneth Anger, Mario Bava, even Gregg Araki. Yet trying to be both trashy and dead-serious, it never quite finds the key to making us truly care about these lost nighthawks. Ambitious, yet inconsequential, it’s full of intriguing ideas, just a bit of a drag to sit through.