Amour Fou

 We reach the bottom of our Hulu queue just in time to cancel. Here are two French films.

TWO OF US (2019) (B+) - The only film by Filippo Meneghetti is a clear-headed ode to true love, the story of two late-in-life lesbians who are constrained by the fear of one of them to come out to her family. And when a health crisis hits, the other is helpless to step in.

This sounds like a classic TV movie-of-the-week -- except for the same-sex part -- but it is richer and deeper than that, a profound slice of life that explores the inner worlds of Nina (Barbara Sukowa) and Madeleine (Martine Chevallier), who live across the hall from each other in a nondescript apartment building. Madeleine's daughter, Anne, and family don't know that the two are lovers, having fallen in love ages ago when they met in Rome. When alone, they are a tender couple, cozy in each other's company; when dour Anne (Lea Drucker) and others are around, they appear to be cordial neighbors.

Then Madeleine suffers a stroke. Nina's instinct is to nurse her partner back to health. But Madeleine, who survived an abusive relationship with a husband, never had the talk with Anne, and so Anne treats Nina like a snoop. And Nina acts like one, using her key to creep into Madeleine's apartment, spooking the live-in nurse (Muriel Benazeraf). Nina is desperate, feeling robbed of the ultimate duty of an aging spouse.

Anne soon starts picking up the hints that have been obvious all along. Meneghetti (writing the script with Malysone Bovorasmy and Florence Vignon ("Mademoiselle Chambon")) crafts this like a claustrophobic thriller. The two leads are powerful, especially Chevallier who communicates volumes with her eyes while incapacitated. Sukowa, known for her biographical portrayals of Hannah Arendt and Rosa Luxemburg, is ferocious. Meneghetti paces the narrative like a pro, keeping you guessing as to whether this will end in tragedy or if true love will win out in the end.

ANAIS IN LOVE (B-minus) - I don't watch Lifetime movies, but from what I've heard, this movie might have a lot in common with them. Do they have harried heroines who run around a lot because they're late? Do the women make ditzy decisions about whom to fall in love with? Is their mom usually dying of cancer? Do they learn a deep life lesson from their 90-minute experience?

This French farce -- with a few dollops of gravitas -- checks all the right boxes to qualify as a run-of-the-mill rom-com, albeit with a French twist. Anais (Anais Demoustier) is 30 going on 16; her hyperactive nature drives away a live-in boyfriend, and when she hooks up with a married professor, she comes off as a stalker or striver rather than any sort of young muse. That bears out, eventually, when the shlubby professor turns out to have a riveting wife, noted author Emilie (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi from "5x2"), whom Anais exalts as a paragon of intelligence and beauty.

It is tough to buy into the relationship between Anais and Daniel the professor (Denis Podalydes), and thus everything after their meeting feels like a cheap plot device. The whimsical nature of the narrative always feels too breezy for any emotions to really land. This is a debut film from Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet, and she occasionally shows a flair for a clever line or a dramatic swerve, but she never captures a believable tone. Demoustier is charming but lightweight. It feels like Tedeschi is slumming, the power of her talent wasted in a "New Girl" knockoff.

BONUS TRACK

"Two of Us" makes lovely use of Petula Clark's "Chariot (Sul Mio Carro)," the Italian forerunner of the 1963 hit "I Will Follow Him." (She also recorded a French version.) For Nina and Madeleine, it is their song, marking the love affair that began in Rome.