The_late_Buddy_Ryan "My Golden Days" came out in 2015 as a late-breaking prequel to Desplechin's mid-90s classic "My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument," which may be the best film since "Lucky Jim" about life on the lower rungs of the academic ladder. Once again, Mathieu Amalric plays Paul Dédalus, now returning to France after a decade or so doing ethnographic fieldwork in the former Soviet Union; a farewell tryst with his gorgeous Russian girlfriend (Dinara Drukarova) unleashes a cascade of memories: In a brief prologue, 10-year-old Paul flees his mentally unstable mother and takes refuge with his great-aunt and her Russian lover. Next, he recounts a daring high-school exploit to an urbane French spook, who wonders why he (and his passport) have doppelgangers in Australia (long story!), and in the longest, most significant episode, he relives an intense love affair with a classmate of his younger sister's, Esther, a clever, soulful, sexy, needy, neurotic young woman (she grows up to be Emmanuelle Devos in "My Sex Life"; here she's played brilliantly by Lou Roy-Lecollinet).Trigger warning: Paul and Esther communicate in improvised love lyrics (as befits two alumni of the Lycée Baudelaire); Esther's pouty histrionics may evoke bittersweet memories of post-adolescent romance, or may just seem too precious to be endured. Your call! This final episode starts to drag a bit as Paul soldiers on as an unfunded grad student in Paris, sleeping in hostels, couch surfing and ménage-à-trois-ing it with a congenial older couple while Esther mopes her way through "a stupid college course" and cheats on him repeatedly. Luckily, Desplechin props up his sometimes rambling storyline with ingenious staging and cinematography: When Paul first approaches Esther, he's surrounded by a windblown swirl of fallen leaves, which is echoed in the final scene as he strides into what looks like a blizzard of torn-out pages from a book (they're both "feuilles" in French, I guess; does it mean that this chapter in his life is coming to an end?); hard to put into words but it's a lovely effect. Finally I should mention the first-rate period soundtrack: The Specials, De La Soul, "Atomic Dog" and Run-D.M.C. It's a remarkable film, though, again, a certain tolerance for post-Truffaut coming-of-age shenanigans is required.

katherinereninger In this film Esther and Paul write letters to each other. They often speak their mind of others, and always profess their feelings for each other. Here are my two favorite correspondences. "I can offer you only my lightness. I admire your every smile, your every rebuff. I realize my offer is flimsy. You make me laugh. Furious, unpleasant, exquisite: you always make me laugh. I love you only with lightness, yet I'm so heavy. Gloomy, as you all said at the party. You were right. You were right. I don't want you to wait. Don't count on me. My life is too austere for that. Paul""Hey Paul. Don't worry. Your remorse gets in your way. I'm simpler. Simply, I'm happy when I see you."Earlier in the movie:"Esther, you exist so much. Like a mountain. My existence, the world around me, seems aquiver. So I'm reassured. I don't care whether you want me. Your existence proves I'm not stuck in a dream. In you, at your feet, I place my faith."

billmarsano Now in his 50s, the jamesjoyceanly named Paul Dédalus looks back on three episodes of his unhappy and tedious life. Only one is interesting: before a teenage class trip to the USSR, Paul has agreed not only to smuggle money and letters to refuseniks (Jews forbidden to emigrate) but to give away his passport, too: taking the very real risk of being trapped in Russia. But nothing much comes of this—it's an isolated incident unrelated to the rest of his life. The other episode involve Paul's deranged mother and loving aunt, and then, at last and of course, there's the tortured love affair of the intensity and tedium (and talking!) so greatly loved by French directors. If you are up for this level of self-indulgence, you will love this movie. And it's LONG, too, so you will have plenty of time to learn to care for or about the feckless Dédalus. Many critics apparently do, so good luck to you!

euroGary The main impression I gained about 'My Golden Days' is a bit more care could have been taken in casting the three actors who play the lead character - at least far as looks go. When we first meet him, Paul Dédalus, a French diplomat, is played by Mathieu Amalric, with his distinctive, 'lived-in' face. We then see him as a child played by Antoine Bui - who is facially so similar to Amalric they could be related. But as a young man, Paul is played by the handsome Quentin Dolmaire, who looks nothing like Amalric and Bui. If Bui didn't look so similar to Amalric this aberration wouldn't be so noticeable.But anyway, the story: returning to France after almost a decade abroad, Paul comes to the attention of the intelligence services because someone with the same name and date of birth has been discovered in Australia. As Paul is questioned, we flashback to his childhood living with his lesbian aunt, to an eventful trip to the Soviet Union and to his student life, but most of all we examine his relationship with the captivating Esther, whom he wins over with his pseudo-intellectual gobbledy-gook.Young Paul is that staple of French cinema, the student who spends too much time thinking. Esther is that other overly-used staple, the unhinged woman. This sort-of prequel to director Arnaud Desplechin's 1996 'My Sex Life... or how I got into an Argument' contains nothing that can't be found in hundreds of other French films. But there's good acting all around; Dolmaire and, as Esther, Lou Roy-Collinet are easy on the eye and their cast of supporting characters interesting. If I have any complaint, it's that I would have liked more - or indeed, any - explanation as to why the child Paul disliked his mother so much, and perhaps more screen time for Amalric - he appears several times in-between the flashbacks of the first third of the film, then suddenly disappears for the rest of it; it's quite noticeable. Where did he go?