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This review may contain spoilers.

La Belle Personne tries to show us with a French high school drama, which centered on Junie and told through a pessimistic, Eric Rohmer narrative and storytelling. In that way, it tries to attempt to examine the three greatest elements of French culture, fume, love, and idealization that feels both classic and refreshingly distinct. The film provocatively and realistically attractes with the concept of love.
What is love? At its main core of tne film , the film refletcs around a heterosexual love triangle, while simultaneously intersecting with a gay relationship, that forms a main point in the story. In this way, it tries to dissect both communication and the lost youth of . What it underscores is not so much resolution but rather the ambiguity characteristic of postmodern narratives, reinterpreting the concept of ‘’amour’’ from different perspectives. Throughout the film, this notion of amour triggers violent events like suicide and aggression, and the it is clear that story carefully avoids crafting a happy ending for either side.
Nemours: See you tomorrow?
Junie: No.
On the other hand, another character worth discussing is Nemours. While he embodies a melancholic portrait that excessively romanticizes love and sex, he is also perceived as inherently attractive by both teachers and students and his status he exploits instrumentally. In many ways, I think he is constructed as an anti-antagonist, subverting the conventions of French New Wave or traditional romance genres. Though he repeatedly shares his feelings for Junie at the restaurant they frequent, the authenticity of these declarations remains ambiguous. The root of this ambiguity lies in Nemours' palpable alienation in both within the school environment and in his relational dynamics.
This raises a crucial question: If Nemours romanticizes love, does that mean Otto, who commits suicide, is framed as the one who truly loved? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Strangely enough, Otto suffers from the same fundamental issues as Nemours, only his societal and emotional responses differ. The primary distinction is that Otto’s sole channel of romantic communication is Junie, making her perceived betrayal an existential rupture. His suicide, then, becomes an inevitablye act of vengeance, equating his death with the betrayal of love itself. Meanwhile, Junie’s self-sacrifice, offering herself to Otto like the Virgin Mary to God and only reinforces Otto’s delusion.
So, love belongs to neither of them. Here, Christophe Honore succeeds in exposing the romanticization of patriarchy. While the character development and moral dilemmas are executed well through sharp dialogue, the cinematography could have been more daring. But who, in this sea of mediocre cinematography, was the true lover?
The answer is simple: No one. Every element in the film, including Junie herself, serves one overarching theme: the antagonism of love. Love here is not fulfillment but contradiction, not resolution but perpetual conflict. Honore strips it of idealism, leaving only its raw, destructive mechanics.