"Nevers is a big, lively city"
"Sometimes I lie"
Felicie is torn between two men: Maxence, a hairdresser with refined taste, and Loic, an intellectual librarian. Yet neither compares to Charles, the cook she fell in love in five years ago on her summer vacation. By a stupid slip of the tongue, she gave him the wrong address during their parting- she to Paris and he to America- and never heard from him again. Now she tries to pursue a reality to which she can resign herself, while not so secretly holding out hope that Charles will somehow reappear.
The paradoxical tone of the film may be best described as something like "fairy tale realism." Rohmer employs a fairy tale-like narrative, but refashions it so that it still looks and sounds like a simple, talky Rohmer film (excluding his more experimental projects).
There is Elise, for example, Felicie's daughter born out of her summer fling with Charles. She is in some ways a physical remnant of the dreamy prologue where we see the two lovers bond on the beach. But the relationship between Felicie and Elise is all but dreamlike. Felicie clearly loves her daughter, but she is by no means a great mother. She certainly doesn't project her love for Charles onto Elise the way one might expect. There is some intrusion of reality, in terms of Felicie's financial situation that forces Elise to live with her grandmother. But one senses that Felicie's concerns about romance and identity clash with her will to care for Elise.
The conclusion of the film also falls under this mode of fairy tale realism. Charles actually appears! Seated across from Felicie on a bus in Paris! Even more, he's single, dealt with some amicable breakups like Felicie, and jumps right into the daddy role when he learns that Elise is his daughter. Yet Rohmer never sensationalizes this "twist." He even leaves the happy ending open-ended, as Felicie realizes that she needs to think over Charles' offer to live with him before she makes another rash decision. She is surely thinking of her brief, ill-fated time in Nevers with Maxence, which strained her relationship with Elise.
So Rohmer concludes with the realistic manifestation of what seems like fantasy. And it just so happens that this is the most directly religious film I've seen of his, in spite of how often he is distinguished from his peers by his Catholic background. The key scene here is the brilliant car ride between her and Loic after the two see a production of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale (which is moving by virtue of how much Felicie is moved by it), of which Rohmer shows the end where the statue of Hermione- thought dead- comes to life. Loic (a lapsed Catholic) wonders aloud if it was magic that brought the statue to life or just logic- perhaps she was never even dead. Felicie, who was affected by this scene for obvious reasons, points out that Loic is ignoring faith (that of Hermione's husband) as an explanation. Faith here isn't totally religious, but it is not faith in magic or reason. If anything, the spiritual mode Felicie operates under is faith in her dreams. Rohmer never quite unravels the dreamlike reality Felicie finds herself in. He seems to take pleasure in showing the mundanity of one intruding on the other.
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