Review: French comedy 'On a Magical Night' is a less-than-magical tale of love, lust and memory

Too clever for its own good, writer-director Christophe Honoré’s sex comedy “On a Magical Night” puts its characters and the audience through far too many mental gymnastics about love and lust, age and infidelity, before coming to a dull-as-dishwater conclusion.

Chiara Mastroianni stars as Maria Mortemart, a Parisian college professor who has just called off her affair with one of her students (Harrison Arevalo) — telling him that she was only attracted to him because his name, Asdrubel Electorat, was highly erotic. (I don’t get it; must be a French thing.) Maria goes home to her husband, Richard Warrimer (Benjamin Biolay), who finds evidence of her affair with Asdrubel. An argument ensues, where Maria declares it’s only logical for a long-married person to seek sex with someone else.

Maria then sneaks out of her and Richard’s apartment, and checks into the hotel across the street. In room 212 (the movie’s French title), she can look out the window and watch Richard putter about. But Maria soon gets a surprise when she sees a man in her bed: It’s Richard as a young man (played by Vincent Lacoste), when he and Maria first met and fell in lust. That part of the relationship is still quite active, as Maria wastes no time getting busy with her husband’s hot younger self.

The next morning, someone else shows up in the hotel room: Irène Haffner (Camille Cottin), who taught the 14-year-old Richard (played by Kolia Abiteboul) to play piano — and groomed him as a lover from 14 to 22. (The movie’s casual attitude about pedophilia must also be a French thing.) The Irène that Maria meets is about 40, the age she was when Richard left her for Maria. (Honoré shows us a 60ish Irène; she’s played by Carole Bouquet, a Bond Girl nearly 40 years ago and looking lovely today.)

Honoré bounces Maria and Richard through fantasy conversations — Richard with Iréne, imagining the life they might have had, and Maria with not only young Richard but with a roomful of former lovers. I’d try to explain the character, played by Stéphane Roger, who represents Maria’s will — and looks like the late singer Charles Aznevour — but that would require overcoming the ignorance I brought into the movie and the apathy it created in me.

Biolay’s presence in the movie is more interesting than anything his character does. Biolay is Mastroianni’s real-life ex-husband, and here he looks like what you’d get if Benicio Del Toro — who also once dated Mastroianni — gained 20 pounds for a role.

Mastroianni is genetically predisposed to be watchable on camera (her parents are Catherine Deneuve and the late Marcello Mastroianni), and her performance as Maria is both beguiling and maddening. Beguiling because she effortlessly captures Maria in her 40s, but makes us see the young woman she once was. Maddening, because she’s trapped in a no-win romantic situation — choose between her schlump of a husband or the fantasy ideal of his younger self — in Honoré’s overbaked soufflé of a movie.

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‘On a Magical Night’ (‘Chambre 212’)

★★

Available May 8 as a video-on-demand through select services; debuting Friday, May 15, on the SLFS@Home portal. Not rated, but probably R for strong sexuality and nudity. Running time: 88 minutes; in French, with subtitles.