Just an Illusion review: Louis Garrel and Camille Cotten star as an ’80s couple in crisis.

ABOUTLivier Nakache and Eric Toledano are the French directors behind the uplifting mega-hit The Intouchables, about a wealthy paraplegic and his caregiver. Now the pair bring their sweet and touching charm to the 1980s in this nostalgic film about a 13-year-old boy growing up in the suburbs of Paris. It’s funny and cute, but I couldn’t help but feel like the filmmakers were missing a trick; their coming-of-age storyline is very good, but Louis Garrel and Call My Agent! star Camille Cotten gives such funny and charismatic performances as the boy’s bickering parents, a portrait of their marriage in crisis would have been 10 times more interesting.

The film begins with Vincent (Simon Boublil) preparing for his bar mitzvah in a tense home atmosphere. There is a recession in the country, there is little money. His father, Yves (Garrel), was laid off several months ago, but every morning he puts on a suit and pretends to go to work; Garrel is amazing, handsome, but fundamentally unreliable. Vincent’s mom is an energetic secretary who sees technology as the future and enrolls in an IT course. At school, Vincent is madly in love with a girl who can’t remember his name or chooses not to remember – she calls him “Thingummi”.

Details from that period are remembered fondly; A massive IBM computer arrives at the family’s apartment from Sandrine’s work. Meanwhile, Vincent gets into a number of harmless troubles, for example, renting a light porn film from a video store, which ends up in the hands of a rabbi. But these moments seem a little secondary compared to the scenes of his parents’ marriage in crisis. In the 80s, women were told they could have it all. The reality for many, like Sandrine, was that they did it all: work and then return home to cook and clean, without expecting men to lift a finger. But times change, and while discussing this, Cottin and Garrel fight together; they’d be the perfect pairing for a Woody Allen-style relationship comedy.