“When you love someone it never really goes away.”
Another collaboration between director Claire Denis and Juliette Binochet, with 2021 sensation Titane’s Vincent Lindon added to the mix, sounds enticing enough for any film fanatic to give a shot. Both Sides of the Blade thrusts us smack dab in the middle of a love triangle between three old French friends. Sara (Juliette Binochet) and Jean (Vincent Lindon) have lived together for nearly a decade in Paris, despite the typical bumps in the road served up to all of us by this thing called life as Vincent struggles to find work as an ex-con and is dealing with his teenage son Marcus (Issa Perica) who lives with Vincent’s mother and is having a hard time due to his strained relationship with Vincent and abandonment by Vincent’s ex-wife. Soon, Vincent’s former friend and Sara’s ex François (Grégoire Colin) returns to Paris after having disappeared following their breakup. François offers Jean a job at his sports talent agency, but things are complicated by Sara’s dormant feelings for François resurfacing with his return. The inevitable soon follows.
While the love triangle at the center of the story is pretty straightforward, the subtext of what it all means and what Denis is trying to communicate is more subtle and takes a minute to come completely into focus. Through Sara and Vincent’s stories, we see the effect that neglect has on love. For Jean, this neglect manifests itself of two fronts, with the first being his neglect of Marcus which has set his son on a path of acting out and strained their relationship. Vincent has also been neglectful in his communication with Sara, creating the fissures that allow François return to crack their relationship. Lest Sara be let off the hook, her neglect in dealing with her hurt and remaining feelings for François before embarking on a relationship with Vincent is the neglect that left those old emotions open like a wound to be infected with François returning to Paris and thrusting her life into chaos. When people feel abandoned and taken for granted, they tend to wander and search for fulfillment elsewhere. Whether it’s Marcus in troubled places or Sara in the arms of François, Both Sides of the Blade puts this reality on full display.
Binochet and Lindon end up doing a lot with a little as their performances as Sara and Jean respectively bring a lot of weight and emotionality to a story that can feel a little meandering and generic. Sara’s spiral into bad habits and betrayal is superbly acted by Binochet who is at once contemptible and compelling as a woman throwing it all away and hurting someone she ostensibly loves due to unresolved feelings and unhealthy infatuation. Lindon’s Jean is simultaneously sympathetic and hard to root for due to the dual nature of his relationships with Sara and Marcus, a feat that was achieved through Lindon’s abilities as an actor. Both Sides of the Blade feels a little rote and repetitive, but Binochet and Lindon do their best to make it compelling enough to finish and not feel too boring or uninteresting. Still, with such big names attached, this one feels a little disappointing, as if it should’ve been more than it is.
Image: IFC Films
