A Little Comfort (2004) User Reviews

Just a sweet but salutary story

[laduqesa · 6/10 · 22 October 2021]

There are some analyses here that delve into philosophical concepts and hifalutin flights of fancy. I'll condense it for everyone - gay guys love a bad straight guy. That's the essence of this story, lust that was at first unrequited, then consummated.

Of course it will never work out - Guillaume wishes Arnaud were a girl and is clearly sitting back getting all the attention.

There were some loose ends. What happens during the two week foster placement? Does the handsome stranger on the bike hang around?

Well, we shall never know and have to use our imaginations.

Sacre Bleuboys

[NoDakTatum · 8/10 · 1 November 2023]

Teenage boys spending a hot summer awakening sexually while dealing with some adult problems is nothing new, but that doesn't stop French film maker Armand Lameloise from taking another try at the genre. Arnaud (Arthur Monela) is obviously secretly in love with his best friend, the handsome Guillaume (Remi Bresson), who has a pretty girlfriend named Vanessa (Elodie Bollee). Guillaume also has problems at home, as his mother (Eva Mazauric) is in and out of a mental facility due to the suicide of her husband. Guillaume does not tell anyone but Arnaud this, and he is staying with his tutor Yannick (Manuel Blanc) while his mom recuperates. Arnaud tries to go straight, taking up with younger high school student Aude (Anna Mihalcea). It's difficult, though, when Guillaume is always around, depending on Arnaud's more stable lifestyle and family- including his mother, played by Fabienne Babe. The pair keep a couple of secrets with each other, but eventually give in to their feelings, and a chance living situation throws them together even more often. The viewer eventually finds out if this is true love, or just a fling.

Although French in origin, and featuring a cast of unfamiliar faces, you have seen this coming-of-age drama before. I am not slamming teen flicks, but eventually all the melodrama gets to be a bit much. While Lameloise does not go overboard into hysterical "Degrassi" territory, he treads some well-worn ground. The two leads are excellent. Both are called on to involve themselves in some explicit sexual scenes, and they handle the challenge. Lameloise does not go the Larry Clark route, this is not hardcore, and the rest of the cast do well. Thankfully, the teens seem normal, and the parents are not portrayed as idiots. The cinematography catches the heat of a French summer beautifully, and the song by the band AqME fits very well into the teenage outlook on life, when the only people you could rely on were your friends and pop culture. "A Little Comfort" is a short film and a lot could have been fleshed out if it had a longer running time. Not a bad effort.

Someone deserves more comfort............A lot more...

[arizona-philm-phan · 16 July 2006]

All you romantics out there can take your own little comfort in this great short feature. It's one that can make us all feel young again (oh, gosh, do we really want that?).

Poor little Arnaud, he's a real sweetie. He pretty much knows, sexually, who he is and what he wants, but it's the desire for the who-he-wants that's giving him problems. And, unfortunately for his peace of mind, the "hotness" of that desire manifests itself.....even during sleep (though Mom is very sympathetic at a time like that, does she actually realize the problem's cause........hmm, perhaps more than we know).

Arnaud, of course, must make one of life's first common mistakes, one which so many of us make: choosing the wrong object of desire, the wrong person to fixate on. And, here, this reviewer's interpretation of Guillaume's role in Arnaud's life is at polar opposites from the opinion expressed by another viewer/writer on this site. In my eyes, G. is the epitome of the "mixed-up kid" (and, perhaps with good reason, considering his family/home situation). He's a tease, concerned primarily with his own gratification, and, in the end, is someone who can relate to our sweet little hero only if pretense is involved (the nature of that pretense you'll easily discover with your own eyes.....er.....uh.....I mean, ears).

In concluding this little reflection of mine on teen life (a life-period which often needs more than the title's little comfort), let me say we can only hope that the angel of a cyclist who appears at film's end is there to provide much more than just 'a little comfort' to our Arnaud. He deserves it.

PS--Pulling us right into the scenes with him, Arthur Moncla does a great job with his character of Arnaud.......especially considering he was only about 17 at the time (yeah, more like 17 going on 40).

****

Seen one, seen pretty much all

[Horst_In_Translation · 2/10 · 30 August 2017]

"Juste un peu de réconfort..." or "A Little Comfort" is a French live action short film from 2004, so this one has its 15th anniversary in two years, maybe less depending on when you read this review. It is the most known career effort by writer and director Armand Lameloise and this does not say anything positive about his body of work really. But the actors are perhaps even worse as the two protagonists are basically sleepwalking their way through these 40 minutes and I guess it is all happening under the pretense of "quietly convincing". But let me tell you what is fact and not make-believe: one of the two does not act anymore and there is basically on the same path these days. No surprise at all after what I have seen from them in here. One or two supporting players were even more memorable and they got like zero screen time. And apart from that it is the same lazy approach you will find in 95% of gay-themed short films. By the way, why have I never heard the term "straight-themed". Anyway, the film drags a lot and the material is not even enough for 20 minutes. They were trying to hide this deficit under the veil of atmospheric shots, horrible music and just the story (if there is any) unfolding slowly. But it't not working out at all. As always, it's about heterosexual attraction and sex (uhhh. how controversial) before finding out they are gay, which is their true identity and destiny. Yep both of them. And that they are also crushing on their best friend. Realism turning in his grave right now after this film murdered it in cold-blood before the 5-minute mark. I really hope Lameloise stepped up his game in the last decade, because this one here is really a gigantic mess. But the ones who should even be far more embarrassed than cast and crew here are those who give crap like this awards. Highly not recommended.

How to chase the object of our desire?

[atlantis2006 · 25 March 2011]

Armand Lameloise recreates the most essential aspects of adolescence: confusion, excitation and teenage angst find a common ground in a story that focuses on two 16-year-old boys.

One of them is Arnaud, who seems to have little interest in girls, although he starts dating one. Perhaps because of peer pressure or maybe just to feel like he can fit in. However, he's clearly fascinated by Guillaume, his best friend. This becomes obvious when Arnaud picks up his friend's clothes in the dressing room and starts sniffing it. Why does he do that? Because the body of his friend is forbidden, but not the object that represents his friend in a most libidinal way.

Later on Arnaud will find his friend's underwear and he won't be able to resist the temptation of trying it on. As a result he will become instantly aroused. Masturbating while wearing his friend's undergarments is as close as he thinks he can get to having intercourse with Guillaume. In this regard, masturbation sustains a fantasy. But life cannot be built upon fantasies and that's why Arnaud wakes up crying in the middle of the night. Guillaume is, after all, the hot guy that has sex with girls very often. And Arnaud knows that… but why does he insist in preserving the dimension of angst? Because angst is a 'horrible certainty' that opposes to the indeterminate of life. This is related to the Lacanian real; so Arnaud has no choice but to approach the real through Lacan's 'object a'. Guillaume is that remainder left outside the process of constitution of the subject in the field of the other which escapes symbolization, and as such is an element heterogeneous to the signifier but nonetheless an element that belongs to the subjective structure: "this remainder, this ultimate Other, that irrational (in mathematical terms) that probe and only guaranty of the alterity of the Other is the object a". The object a (Guillaume) depends entirely on the phantasm. That's why it's so hard to conceive a lasting relationship between the two boys. For too long Guillaume has lived in Arnaud's mind only as a fantasy, and even if some things might become true, this phantasm will weigh heavily on the protagonist.

Arnaud breaks up with the girl he was dating, and accuses Guillaume of coming to him only when he's in trouble. Subconsciously, Arnaud challenges his friend to step out of the fantasy, to resign as a phantasm and turn into a real object a, an obtainable object of desire. Whether this gambit pays off or not, is for you to see.

beautiful

[Kirpianuscus · 6 April 2020]

A nice and precise portrait of a teenager . The lead virtue - this teenager is performed, in admirable manner, by Arthur Monclat. His acting is, in many senses, the good axis saving a story far to be new or special but only nice. Remy Bresson seems prisoner of his character and, maybe for less experience, he use old formulas. A film about desire more than about love, about different needs, about parenthood - in minimalistic way, Fabienne Babe, as mother of Arnaud a precious performance. So, a beautiful to nice film about a delicate subject.