Just a Question of Love (2000)

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

For a change: A coming-out story acted with great skill and staged with a sage sensitivity, realistic in so many ways, and dealing head-on with what is unfortunately an issue for far too many parents--accepting a child for what he or she is, how he or she develops, loving them simply because they are your children. The relationship between Cedric and Laurent develops quite easily, and because this is not a film about hot sex scenes but about people coping with growth and adulthood, one grows to care a good deal about the characters and share their development. This is a perfect film for parents who still might be hanging on to archaic gay issues in a so-called enlightened age--or for the kid who has to face the parents; if one were to judge by the media, just about everybody has adopted a enlightened stance about this once-touchy subject. If, however, one exists in a small community largely untouched by outside forces, it is a film like this that help in making changes easier--and at any rate, it's a touching, adult story told with great skill.

I cannot tell you, with any great insight, the lessons to be learned with this film or the messages it may send to those who do not (choose not to) 'understand' homosexuality. That's not to say they are not there, or that this film fails to make those connections because it does. It speaks for those mistreated, it makes clear the tragedies that come with this prejudice, and does so - in my opinion - without being preachy, or pointing angry fingers.For me, it is simply a story of love. A love that proves to be so special, that the two main characters - Cedric and Laurent - are willing to make crucial decisions, and changes in their lives for its survival. It is these two men; with their boyish behaviors - the joking, teasing and name calling - and the easy way they are together, that make this film. Superbly acted, this is a story that you can believe in.

Being American, it is difficult watching subtitled foreign films. We have such a genre of films in this country as it is. It also makes someone stop multitasking to sit and read the script. It was a pleasure and an uplifting experience watching this movie. It is SO difficult coming to terms with being gay and seeing "sterityped" films with gays on drugs, whoring around, and eventually dying of AIDS. This is one of the few films that positively deals with love between two men and the difficulties that truly must be overcome. True love will make the most jaded, closeted gay person throw all cares and insecurities to the wind. I mean, whose life is it anyway??? What an uplift!! Please watch this movie!! Excellent!

"Just a question of love" is no doubt a well-acted film with a rich story. Previous reviews have dealt with the story and the very heartwarming interaction between the two main characters, Laurent and Cédric. This love story alone would make this film great. I thought that in my review I address two other features of the film which in my opinion further adds to this film and making it even greater.This film made me reflect over the difference between Europe and north America with regard to "gayness". I am under the impression (possibly a false impression) that in north America the "coming out" is much more connected to the acceptance of a gay identity with its various attributes. In this film the two main gay characters are a student of agriculture and a researcher in microbiology, hardly occupations associated with "gayness" as, for example, actor and florist. This absence of acceptance or display of stereotypical gay identity may very well give this film a rather radical gay political message, namely that the coming out does not need to involve a "coming in" to a more and more commercialized (americanized?) gay identity. Politics is hardly a central theme of this film, but with the current debate about the political limits and self-imposed restraints of the gay identity in mind, this film got me to think about this political issue.That said about the "centre" of the film, the film also explicitly "speaks" to parents. In the film there are a total of five parents who in different ways relate to the homosexuality of a child of theirs. On the one hand there is the widowed mother of Cédric who has come to accept her sons homosexuality, not by principle but rather out of love for her son. By no means perfect (why should she be?), she is clearly the most sympathetic of the parents who refuses to sit by and watch the joy between her son and Laurent be destroyed. She plays an important role in how the parents of the central character Laurent relate to their sons newly revealed homosexuality. On the other side the uncle and aunt to Laurent stand; they rejected their son, Laurent's cousin, when he came out -- a son who later would die (not of AIDS, though, gay men can die of other things also!). In the film, the aunt is a depressed figure who through most of the film either swallows tablets (presumably anti-depressant) or utters odd remarks, except at one instant where she urges the devastated mother of Laurent to ask herself what "we" parents really mean when we says we love our children, a very important scene in the film as I see it. Both Cédric and Laurent are aware of and fairly secure in their homosexuality, the ones who have to come to terms are the parents of Laurent, they are the ones who have to make the greatest "transition" during the course of the film.The film thus manages to address many relations and questions and does so very well. Well worth to see and as noted above not only addressed to gays.