Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train

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Movie Details

• Genre: Drama
• Release Date: 1999-08-06 NY
• Running Time: 122 min.
• Director: Patrice Chereau
• Cast: Pascal Greggory, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
• Producer: Charles Gassot
• Writer: Daniele Thompson, Patrice Chereau
• Distributor:
• Official Site: Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train Official Site

Set partly on a train headed toward the southern French city of Limoges, this self-important and humorless drama is packed with unsympathetic characters suffering crises so grandiose as to be simply boring. Before dying of a heart attack, the sexually voracious Parisian painter Jean-Baptiste (Jean-Louis Trintignant) had asked to be buried in faraway Limoges, arguing that those who loved him could take the train. Indeed, the mourning friends, lovers, ex-lovers, wives of ex-lovers, and casual acquaintances--a convoluted muddle of ties past and present--all conspire to exorcise their demons en route. There's François (Pascal Greggory) and Louis (Bruno Todeschini), who make a cranky but solid couple, at least until Louis notices a greasy-haired young thing and decides to have sex with him in the train's narrow restroom. Turns out the greasy young thing is not only HIV-positive, but has been screwing François, who in turn is truly, madly in love with the dead painter--so you can imagine the mess. Meanwhile, estranged couple Jean-Marie (Charles Berling) and Claire (Valéria Bruni-Tedeschi) are working on their collapsed marriage mostly by screaming at each other, all to the tune of some old woman's incessant rap about the deceased. It's oppressive--and the train ride is just the beginning. (Jelena Petrovic)