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A Game for Six Lovers
Year
1960
Language
FRENCH (ENGLISH subtitles)
Duration
1h 24m
Rating
NR
CC
Performers
Bernadette Lafont, Françoise Brion, Alexandra Stewart, Michel Galabru, Jacques Riberolles
Directed By
Jacques Doniol-Valcroze
Publication Information
Icarus Films
Summary
One of the founders of the epochal film magazine Cahiers du cinema, and therefore a prime mover of the French New Wave, Doniol-Valcroze joined all the upstart critics making films in the late '50s-early 60s with this decadent debut, a cynical drama about upper-class indolence and betrayal. The game-players in question, arriving at a spectacular villa for the reading of a matriarch's will, include guileless city girl Milena (Francoise Brion), her lawyer ex-boyfriend Miguel (Gerard Barray), and her long-unseen cousins, Fifine (Alexandra Stewart) and Jean-Paul (Jacques Riberolles) - except Jean-Paul is actually Fifine's boyfriend Robert, passing himself off as a member of the family. The couple maintains an open "arrangement," and so the gathering becomes a round of duplicity, swapped partners, and heartbreak.