Three movies to watch this week

“Three Friends”

Camille Cotin, India Hair, and Sara Forestier play the three friends in Emmanuel Mouret's new film, who live in Lyon and whom the director involves in a sentimental whirlwind of husbands, ex-husbands, lovers, and new lovers, monotonously describing their stereotypical, uninteresting, and irrelevant love affairs, maudlin moods, and banal heartbreaks (especially Joan in India Hair, who spends half the time crying and the other half in anguish). The film is narrated by a ghost, the character of Vincent Macaigne, the most tasteless and insignificant French actor of the moment. Mouret is praised by French critics (and beyond), but it's not "The Three Friends " that will change my mind and make me stop seeing him as a pocket-sized epigone of Eric Rohmer, a featherweight caricature of Truffaut.

“A Wonderful World”

Science fiction is a genre that has very little to do with French cinema, and Giulio Callegari's A Wonderful World presents itself as a rare exception—especially since its signature comedy. Blanche Gardin plays Max, a former teacher who resists technological progress in a future where humans increasingly depend on robots. To survive, Max and her daughter, little Paula, sell robots on the black market, but when her latest scheme goes wrong, Max loses custody of her daughter. To get her back, she'll have to enlist the help of TO, the chatty and inconvenient robot who was the product of the latest scam, and who is ready to help her in any way she can.

“Together”

The first feature film by Australian director Michael Shanks, Together stars Dave Franco and Alison Brie, who are a real-life couple. Tim (Franco) is a rock musician who has never had a solid career, and Millie (Brie) is a teacher. They've been together for 10 years, never married, still in love but going through a period of discomfort. So, they decide to leave the city and move to a house in the countryside to see if the change will benefit them and strengthen their relationship. But not before, at a farewell party thrown by their friends, Millie proposes to Tim in front of everyone, and he hesitates in his answer, much to her embarrassment and sadness. Once in their new home, they explore the surrounding woods and fall into a cave. "Together" was chosen as film of the week by Observador.