Las dos inglesas y el amor

The first Truffaut film that didn’t work for me, although it’s true that it is not entirely his fault. After Jules and Jim, this is the director's second adaptation of a book by Henri-Pierre Roché. The form and creation of the illusion that all the events of the past seven years are learned from letters and diary entries written by the individual characters is absolutely perfect. Even the theme of hidden and unrequited love in an unconventional love triangle is interesting enough to ensure that the more than two hours of movie does not get boring. An energetic Frenchman, Claude, who wants to enjoy life is contrasted with two virtuously brought up and yet completely different Brown sisters from the island side of the English Channel. Relations between them begin to become more and more complicated over time, with the main focus being not the heart, but the mind influenced by the upbringing, environment, and opinions of the family. My problem with the movie as a whole is that I was fundamentally bothered by Stacey Tendeter who played Muriel. I did not believe her performance for a moment, try as I might. Thus the only thing that worked for me were the scenes between Claude and Anna, which are full of hidden passion. It's definitely not a bad or mediocre movie. It's ultimately just a variation on Jules and Jim and not having read the book, I can't judge whether the fault is with the writer or with Truffaut. (28.01.2007)

Truffaut mainly focused on studying interpersonal relationships in his work, especially those between the two genders, and he didn't delve too much into the past. Two English Girls can be considered his only costume film, but it is not from history that is all that distant. The story takes place at the beginning of the 20th century, and Truffaut describes an interesting love triangle between a young French man from a well-off bourgeois family and two sisters from a typical puritanical English family. It is not just a film about love and sex, but also about different cultures and particularly about a transformative era when modern society as we know it was born. The girls Muriel and Anne are products of the modern world, they play tennis, eagerly explore the world, and have excessively progressive views considering the families they come from. At the same time, they are influenced by the traditional values of bourgeois conservatism and dare not rebel against the strict rules of morality at the time. From today's perspective, it is a bit of a peculiar world, where the first sexual encounter takes seven years to happen and is filled with abstinence and futile longing. Some dialogues may seem somewhat literary, and in another film, I would mind, but I believe in Truffaut and his characters. The attitudes and behavior of Claude's mother, who embodies bourgeois calculation and pure pragmatism, are a true delicacy. Overall impression: 95%. (20.10.2009)