Between dinner parties, lectures, and cultivated stagnation, Sophia has been living in a “sensible” relationship with Xavier for years—conformist, intellectual, functional. But when handyman Sylvain shows up at her construction site, her worldview is shaken. Incompatible lifestyles collide: academic pretense meets physical presence, bourgeois routines meet anarchic lust. What begins as an affair becomes a radical questioning of her own life. THE NATURE OF LOVE (original title: SIMPLE COMME SYLVAIN) is a French-Canadian arthouse drama that explores the boundaries between desire, social conditioning, and self-presentation with sharp wit and sensual precision. Director Monia Chokri, known for “A Brother's Love,” unfolds a pointed social study that focuses on female desire—without guilt, without lecturing, but with pace, lust, and depth. The film premiered in Cannes in 2023 in the Un Certain Regard section and won the Prix SACD, among other awards. With Magalie Lépine-Blondeau and Pierre-Yves Cardinal, the ensemble shines with brilliant dialogue and magnetic physicality. André Turpin's cinematography lends the film an ironically charged retro aesthetic. THE NATURE OF LOVE is more than a love story – it is a radical look at the tension between freedom and entanglement.
Sophia's life is turned upside down when she meets Sylvain. She comes from a wealthy family, while he comes from a family of manual laborers.
Between dinner parties, lectures, and cultivated stagnation, Sophia has been living in a “sensible” relationship with Xavier for years—conformist, intellectual, functional. But when handyman Sylvain shows up at her construction site, her worldview is shaken. Incompatible lifestyles collide: academic pretense meets physical presence, bourgeois routines meet anarchic lust. What begins as an affair becomes a radical questioning of her own life.
THE NATURE OF LOVE (original title: SIMPLE COMME SYLVAIN) is a French-Canadian arthouse drama that explores the boundaries between desire, social conditioning, and self-presentation with sharp wit and sensual precision. Director Monia Chokri, known for “A Brother's Love,” unfolds a pointed social study that focuses on female desire—without guilt, without lecturing, but with pace, lust, and depth.
The film premiered in Cannes in 2023 in the Un Certain Regard section and won the Prix SACD, among other awards. With Magalie Lépine-Blondeau and Pierre-Yves Cardinal, the ensemble shines with brilliant dialogue and magnetic physicality. André Turpin's cinematography lends the film an ironically charged retro aesthetic. THE NATURE OF LOVE is more than a love story – it is a radical look at the tension between freedom and entanglement.