Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo
Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo is a 2019 French erotic drama film directed by Abdellatif Kechiche. It premiered In Competition at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival where it was widely panned. The film is a sequel to Kechiche's 2017 film "". Like its predecessor, the film is an adaptation of the French novel "La Blessure, la vraie" written by François Bégaudeau. As its title suggests, the film is an interlude with a third and final film in the works. As of 2021, because of the ongoing legal battles of Kechiche's production company the film remains unseen  outside of its Cannes premiere, with controversy also surrounding its treatment of lead actress Ophélie Bau. The third and final film, which has been reported as complete, is also in jeopardy. Plot. In 1994, Ophélie discovers she is pregnant with her lover's child even though she is engaged and due to marry her fiancé soon. With summer at a close she contemplates going to Paris to have an abortion. She and her friends decide to spend a night at a club in Sète where she has sex with her other friend. Production. The decision to split this film apart  from the film "" caused Kechiche's producers to withdraw funds for post-production for both films in 2017. Kechiche did eventually find the funds necessary to finish both films, in part by auctioning off the Palme d'or he won for "Blue Is the Warmest Colour". However before a planned third film could be completed Kechiche's production company became financially insolvent calling into question his ability to complete the final Mektoub film. Controversy. The film featured a 13-minute unsimulated sex scene where actress Ophélie Bau receives oral sex from actor Roméo de Lacour and is brought to orgasm. Shortly  before the film premiered at Cannes a report broke that Kechiche pressured the actors involved to consume alcohol to finish the scene despite their reluctance to do so. Bau attended the premiere of the film but left before the screening and did not attend a press conference for the film. In 2020 she revealed that she refused to attend the screening because she had requested Kechiche allow her to view the sex scene in question at a private screening before the film was publicly shown, a request which he denied. Reception. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds  an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: "Joyless and distastefully photographed, Abdellatif Kechiche's second chapter in his romantic epic is too enamored with derrière to offer audiences a reason to care." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 10 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike".