Released on October 16, 2024, the realization of Gilles Lellouche has become a phenomenon at the box office and was appointed 13 times to the César.
Love phew is one of the big favorites of the 2025 César. After having gathered 4.9 million spectators in theaters, Gilles Lellouche’s film could leave with several statuettes this Friday, February 28, 2025. Because this passionate romance between Jackie and Clotaire, which began in the 1980s in their adolescence before life and crime separated them and that they are found in adulthood, conquered the public but also the academy: appointments.
If you have missed the phenomenon, you will have to be patient: the film is not yet available on streaming platforms. It has been released on DVD and Blu-ray since February 19, 2025. It is also visible for purchase and rental on most VOD platforms.
Synopsis – The 80s, in the north of France. Jackie and Clotaire grow between high school benches and port docks. She studies, he drags. And then their destinies meet and it’s crazy love. Life will strive to separate them but nothing helps, these two are like the two ventricles of the same heart.
The public was waiting Love phew Firm, but for criticism, Cannes projection, a real whirlwind of images and music, was however a cold shower. Overall, press opinions are quite mixed. Some have been carried away by the cinema gesture, like First who salutes “generosity” shown by Lellouche, Who does a lot, sometimes too much, but who ends up seducing with his sincerity. The Parisian Hides a “vibrant and romantic” film with a fiery staging and moving actors (Malik Frikah is notably unanimously praised for his first role in the cinema), while denouncing the complacency which the film shows with regard to the violence shown by the protagonist played by François Civil. For The Huffington Postif the story of love made of violence and dependence depicted “does not dream”, the feature remains “phew to look”.
But Love phew has its many detractors. Telerama deplore an “exhausting tote”. In detail, it is the lack of mastery that the cultural media reproaches and a “ambition a little too big for him”. Despite “a desire for cinema as sincere as rowdy”, the director makes it a lot from one point of view staged and mixed genres, all served by “a very blue flower vision of love”, despite performances of played actors. Inrocks is more categorical, believing that the film is “formally puffy and quite nauseating in its words”. Same sound of bell for the point, which believes that “there is too much as in a big pudding with disheveled romanticism and which overflows from everywhere”. This did not prevent the film from receiving 15 minutes of standing ovation at its first Cannoise, a record for this edition … but from leaving empty -handed in terms of awards.
Love phew has become the sixth film the most seen from 2024 to the cinema In France, ENGEmore than 4.9 million admissions. Il is thus the third French film the most seen of the year, behind A little extra thing (10 million entries) and Count of Monte-Cristo (9 million admissions).
If the French went en masse to the cinemas during the month of October (+10.8% of entries over a year according to the National Center for Cinematography), the success of Love phew is multi-factorial. Worn by a five -star cast (Civil François, Adèle Exarchopoulos To name only the main duo), a promotion carried out broken, but also an excellent word of mouth for an outing in the middle of All Saints’ Day, Gilles Lellouche’s film above all succeeded in touching the adolescent audience. On social networks, and in particular Tiktok, many of them comment on extracts from the film.
According to a study by the Vertigo Institute, carried out in November 2024, 29% of spectators of Love phew are aged 14 to 25, competing with American blockbusters, as Deadpool & Wolverine (27%) or Dune: Part 2 (25%). This film on a first vibrant love against the backdrop of gang war is indeed dreaming of the young generation.
17 years of gestation
Love phew is a film that Gilles Lellouche wanted to stage for over 17 years. It was Benoît Poelvoorde who offered him the novel by the Irish writer Neville Thompson, Jackie Loves Johnter ok? Posted in 1997, advising him to make it a film. For years, Gilles Lellouche tried to make it an “ultra -violent romantic comedy”, but the project will be delayed. Finally, after the success of Big bathfirst comedy made by Gilles Lellouche, Love phew is announced on the sidelines of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. It will still be necessary to wait three years before the film comes out in cinemas, the director writing the scenario with four hands with Audrey Diwan (The event, Emmanuelle…).
As its name suggests, Love phew Traces an epic love story as only cinema can tell, that of Jackie and Clotaire. They meet in adolescence, in the 1980s in the north of France. While their social origins oppose them, they fall madly in love with each other. But when Clotaire is accused of having committed a crime, he is sentenced to spending twelve years in prison and loses Jackie. When he left, then 27 years old, he is determined to win back the one he loves and to make up for lost time.
Added to this romantic and romantic scenario, the rumors of real romance between the two stars of the film (who annoy the two main interested parties who refuse to respond to them on a promotion), it was not necessary to tickle curiosity.
A dream cast
Love phewit is also a completely phew casting. If Gilles Lellouche works “only” to the realization and does not appear as an actor in the film, he gathered around him the biggest names of the moment. Civil François (The three musketeers) and Adèle Exarchopoulos (Adèle’s life, I will always see your faces) embody the two lovers in adulthood, when they are Mallory Wanecque (The worst) and Malik Frikah (Apache) which embody their teenage versions. Around them, a myriad of second roles evolves: Alain Chabat (The City of Fear), Benoît Poelvoorde (It happened near you, podium), Vincent Lacoste (Lost illusions, Hippocrates), Jean-Pascal Zadi (Simply black, in place), Elodie Bouchez (I will always see your faces), Karim Leklou (Bac north, the world is yours), Raphaël Quenard (Yannick) and Anthony Bajon (Prayer) All come to give the reply to the protagonists.
Big budget
For Love phewGilles Lellouche saw things in very big: romantic drama, gangster film, ultra-violent scenes punctuated by dancing scenes, reconstruction of the 1980s and 1990s, tubes (The Bure, Prince …), Licked and Impacting Photography staging … The disappointed press denounced a “tote” at the Cannes Festival, forcing Gilles Lellouche (the film is amputated by 20 minutes compared to the version projected on the Croisette, tells us The Parisian). As a result, filming takes several months, many sets are used, the team is enlarged up to 90 people. So much so that, according to the CNC, the film would have cost 35.7 million euros.