Just an Illusion review – Louis Garrel and Camille Cottin sizzle as an 80s couple in crisis

Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano are the French directors who created the uplifting mega-hit Intouchables, about a wealthy quadriplegic and his carer. Now the pair bring their brand of squishy heartwarming charm to the 1980s, with this nostalgic movie about a 13-year-old boy growing up in the Paris suburbs. It’s funny and sweet but I couldn’t help feeling the film-makers missed a trick; their coming-of-age plot is all very well, but Louis Garrel and Call My Agent! star Camille Cottin give such funny and charismatic performances as the boy’s bickering parents, a portrait of their marriage in crisis would have been 10 times more entertaining.

The film opens with Vincent (Simon Boublil) preparing for his barmitzvah against a fractious atmosphere at home. The country is gripped by recession and money is tight. His dad, Yves (Garrel) was laid off months ago, but every morning puts on a suit and pretends to go out to work; Garrel is terrific, likable but fundamentally unreliable. Vincent’s mum is a go-getting secretary, who can see that the future is technology and signs up for an IT course. At school, Vincent has a massive crush on a girl who cannot remember his name, or chooses not to – she calls him “Thingummy”.

The period details are fondly remembered; a massive IBM computer arrives at the family’s flat from Sandrine’s work. Meanwhile, Vincent gets into an assortment of harmless scrapes, like renting a soft porn movie from the video shop that ends up in the hands of the rabbi. But these moments feel a bit B-game next to the scenes of his parents’ marriage in crisis. In the 80s women were told they could be having it all. The reality, for many like Sandrine, was that they were doing it all, working then coming home to cook and clean, with no expectation men would lift a finger. But times are a-changing, and negotiating this, Cottin and Garrel sizzle together; they’d be the perfect pairing for a Woody Allen-ish relationship comedy.