''Boyfriends and Girlfriends'' (french: L'Ami de mon amie; also known as ''My Girlfriend's Boyfriend'') is a 1987 French romantic

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

film written and directed by

Éric Rohmer Jean Marie Maurice Schérer or Maurice Henri Joseph Schérer, known as Éric Rohmer (; 21 March 192011 January 2010), was a French film director, film critic, journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and teacher. Rohmer was the last of the post-World ...

. The film stars

Emmanuelle Chaulet Emmanuelle Chaulet is a French actress. She starred in Eric Rohmer's 1987 comedy ''Boyfriends and Girlfriends'' and Jon Jost's 1990 film ''All the Vermeers in New York''. Filmography * 1987 : '' L'Ami de mon amie'', directed by Éric Rohmer (Blan ...

Sophie Renoir Sophie Renoir (born 1964) is a French actress. She is the great-granddaughter of the French Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919), and daughter of the cinematographer Claude Renoir (1913–1993), granddaughter of actors Pierre R ...

, Anne-Laure Meury,

François-Éric Gendron François-Éric Gendron (15 March 1954 in Fontainebleau, Seine-et-Marne) is a French actor.François Thomas ''L'atelier d'Alain Resnais'' 1989 Page 291 "De son côté, Adolph Green viendra à Paris passer une semaine de travail intensif avec Resn ...

and Éric Viellard. It is the sixth and final instalment in Rohmer's ''Comedies and Proverbs'' series. The title literally means the (male) friend of my (female) friend, or perhaps the boyfriend of my girlfriend: it echoes the proverb "Les amis de mes amis sont mes amis" ("My friend's friend is my friend").

Plot

Blanche is freshly installed in

Cergy-Pontoise Cergy-Pontoise () is a New town#France, new town and an Agglomeration communities in France, agglomeration community in France, in the Val-d'Oise and Yvelines departments of France, departments, northwest of Paris on the river Oise (river), Oise. I ...

, a trendy

new town New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...

near Paris. She has a new apartment, a new job with no one over and no one under her. She meets Léa at lunch one day, and soon she meets an acquaintance of Léa, Alexandre, whom she approaches somewhat awkwardly. The film then follows the time-honored plot of exchange of relationships, as Blanche and Léa switch boyfriends.

Cast

as Blanche *

as Léa *

as Alexandre * as Fabien * as Adrienne

Reception

The film received generally positive reviews from major critics. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

it has an approval rating of 100% based on reviews from 10 critics. Vincent Canby of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' praised the film highly, saying, "''L'Ami de Mon Amie'' is as clean and functional in appearance as the satellite city, but it's full of unexpected delights."

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

of the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...

'' gave it three out of four and wrote: "Rohmer knows exactly what he is doing here. He has no great purpose, but an interesting small one: He wants to observe the everyday behavior of a new class of French person, the young professionals." Film critic

Jonathan Rosenbaum Jonathan Rosenbaum (born February 27, 1943) is an American film critic and author. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for ''The Chicago Reader'' from 1987 to 2008, when he retired. He has published and edited numerous books about cinema and has ...

also gave the film a favourable rating. Hal Hinson of ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' wrote: "It's an utterly superficial movie – a celebration of superficiality – and utterly charming."

References

External links

* * * 1980s French films 1980s French-language films 1980s romantic comedy-drama films 1987 comedy-drama films 1987 films 1987 romantic comedy films 1987 romantic drama films Fictional couples Films about friendship Films directed by Éric Rohmer Films produced by Margaret Ménégoz Films set in France French romantic comedy-drama films {{1980s-France-film-stub