Les Deux Anglaises Et Le Continent (aka Two English Girls/Anne And Muriel) (1971)

At the turn of the century, a young Frenchman (Jean Pierre Leaud) meets a young English girl (Kika Markham) in Paris. She invites him to England to spend time with her mother (Sylvia Marriott) and sister (Stacey Tendeter) with the notion of playing matchmaker between him and her sister. Eventually, both sisters become romantically involved with him. Francois Truffaut directs this film based on the novel by Henri Pierre Roche which is a gender reversal of another Roche novel, JULES ET JIM (also made into a film by Truffaut) which had a woman in love with two men. The film suffers terribly in comparison to Truffaut's previous film. None of the characters are as fascinating or compelling as Jeanne Moreau's Catherine. Leaud, looking bewildered through it all, gives a stilted, passionless performance. Just what the two sisters see in him is lost on us. While the two actresses playing the sisters fare somewhat better, for a film about love and passion it's too analytical. Don't talk about it endlessly for over two hours, show us! Truffaut does the narration and the exquisite score is by Georges Delerue (who has a cameo as Leaud's business manager). With Philippe Leotard and David Markham (Kika's father, who played Jacqueline Bisset's husband in DAY FOR NIGHT).