I love so much frenh movies, but this one is not good bored, too much short and nothing new, I do not know what is the iea with this movie, bad, very bad

First, let me celebrate the 60 years in the business that Jean-Claude Carriere will soon mark. He'll turn 90 next year, and this old collaborator with Luis Bunuel, Louis Malle and so many other great directors is still writing lovely scripts. Second, this is an impressive film from Louis Garrel, who manages to pull off the always challenging feat of directing and playing the male lead. I thought only men like Orson Welles could do that. Garrel plays Abel as somewhat hangdog: imagine what it would be like to hear from your live-in girlfriend that she's pregnant and she's through with you because she's been having an affair with your best friend--ouch!--then, years later, her son confides in you that he thinks his mom killed his dad. Superb acting here from Garrel and the wonderful kid Joseph Engel. Finally, Laetitia Casta and Lily-Rose Depp are both very good. Casta's part is the more challenging, she's got to be like Maria Casares in Les dames du Bois de Boulogne, and she brings it off.

A Faithful Man is actor turned director Louis Garrel's foray into romantic comedy. Garrel, son of noted French director Phillippe Garell, is also co-writer here and ends up clocking in at a mere 75 minutes of screen time. You might suspect just looking at the running time that the film might be deficient in terms of its basic narrative. And in fact (sad to report),this is where indeed Garrel's effort sadly leaves us "asking for more."

A Faithful Man begins interestingly enough with Garrel himself playing the film's hapless protagonist, Abel, a freelance TV journalist of sorts, who is blindsided by his girlfriend of three years, Marianne (Laetitia Casta) who announces one day out of the blue that she's pregnant by Abel's best friend Paul and plans on moving in with him post-haste.

Flash forward nine years with Abel still pining for Marianne who is suddenly left a widow when Paul drops dead of an apparent heart attack (Paul is never seen on screen). That's Abel's cue to get back together with his former love, only to suddenly hesitate when Marianne's pre-pubescent son Joseph (Joseph Engel),a fledgling crime buff, informs that he believes that his mother poisoned his father.

With that engaging plot twist, we're expecting the film might veer in the direction of neo-noir but again sad to report, nothing of the sort transpires. Rather, Marianne pours cold water on our hopes of suspense when she informs Abel that she's aware that Joseph has already been peddling that story around, perhaps to ward off any future moves by potential suitors of his mother.

The rest of A Faithful Man focuses on Eve, Paul's younger sister (played by Johnny Depp's sister, Lily-Rose Depp) who reveals that she's been obsessed with Abel since childhood. Again, there's a hint that we might be veering back into neo-noir territory as Eve has the potential of being some kind of "Fatal Attraction" nut case. Such desires are quashed, again by Marianne, who (in classic French style) suggests that Abel have a romantic fling with Eve, to mollify her and perhaps assuage any of Abel's self-doubts about their relationship.

After the Eve-Abel hookup, she sours on him after Joseph spills the beans to Eve that Abel was acting at his mother's behest. The rather quick denouement shows Abel and Marianne reconciled, with little Joseph now accepting Abel back in the fold as potential stepfather.

Garrel shows talent as a director of actors, all of whom offer up breezy, convincing performances, trapped in "les affaires de coeur." But still plot-wise Garrel and co-writer Jean-Claude Carrière could have proffered up a bit more in terms of twists and turns in the plot, which may have resulted in a better reception from the critics, who so far have given the film a mixed reception.