How do real-life relationships drive international Oscar contenders?

Top: Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel star in Tran Anh Hung’s The Taste of Things, and Jussi Vatanen and Alma Puesti in Moby’s Fallen Leaves.

Courtesy of Stephanie Brancheau/IFC Films; Courtesy of Sputnik/Mobi

It is interesting to look at the international films competing for awards season this year, to see how many adult films there are. Not in the “XXX” sense of the word, but adult in the sense of stories that depict adult, mature people having mature relationships.

Take IFC Taste of things From director Tran Anh Hung. France’s official contender for Best International Film, Oscar stars Benoît Magimel and Juliette Binoche as Dudin and Eugenie, a 19th-century gourmet chef and his cook who are more or less bonded by the joy of working together and their shared love of food. Do more than have them repeatedly fall under the sheets.

“They’ve been together for 20 years, and she never wanted to get married because she wanted to remain independent,” Binoche says, describing her. Taste of things a personality. “She knows that her independence is linked to her work, to what she excels at, working in the kitchen, cooking. This connects her to Dodin more than what happens in the bedroom.

In the film’s closing scene, Eugenie asks Dudin if she was his wife first or his cook. “My cook,” he answers. “Thank you,” she says. Professional respect means more than romantic love. (Binoche and Magimel know something about both: the romantic partners share a daughter.)

On the other side of the spectrum, historically and also romantically, you have Justine Treat Anatomy of a fall, a contemporary legal thriller distributed by Neon in the United States, revolves around writer Sandra (played by Sandra Holler), who may or may not have killed her husband, Samuel (Samuel Theis). Conspiracy anatomy, a top Best Picture contender since it scooped the Palme d’Or at Cannes earlier this year (on December 11, it received Golden Globe nods for Best Picture, Actress, and Non-English Language Screenplay), is a courtroom mystery centered around… About whether or not Sandra killed Samuel. But at its core, the French drama is a dissection of a marriage gone terribly wrong. Pivotal scene in anatomy is a violent argument between a married couple, and one of the most painfully realistic depictions ever shown of how long-married couples fight: no holds barred, no punches.

Tritt, who co-wrote anatomy The screenplay, with real-life partner Arthur Harari, says the idea for the film came from a desire to “dive into a relationship” in all its complexities. Sandra clearly sees her husband’s many failings, but until the accident in which he was involved in – or was driven to – his death, she found a way to make the relationship work for their son and because that’s what adult couples do. Do.

A24 Area of ​​interest, the UK’s official best international feature and Golden Globe nominee for Best Picture (Drama), Best Non-English Film and Original Score, provides a most chilling vision of married life. Rudolf and Hedwig Hoss (Christian Friedel and Höller), the couple at the center of director Jonathan Glazer’s German-language drama, seem to have it all: a beautiful house, a garden, and five happy, healthy children. Rather, there is a shared sense of purpose, a common political goal in which they both believe. But the goal is the Holocaust. Rudolf Höss is the commandant of Auschwitz. The couple are accomplices in crimes against humanity.

European cinema has a long tradition of presenting relationships flavored with sour and sweet. Think of Ingmar Bergman’s 1974 classic Scenes from marriageThe film is about a couple (Erland Josephsson and Liv Ullmann) who have irreconcilable differences and cannot quite shake love. Or Roberto Rossellini Trip to Italy (1954), starring Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders as a very rich but emotionally indifferent couple who seem closer to the cynical millennials than the post-war baby boomers.

There’s a little more room for romance in Magnolia Promised LandDenmark’s entry for the Oscars and Mobi Awards Fallen leavesFinland’s awards are promising. Both have elements of a traditional love story. But both are clear-eyed, and not naive, about the risks and compromises of romance in later life. Directed by Nikolaj Arcel Ownership issue fame, Promised Land It stars Mads Mikkelsen and Amanda Cullen as Ludwig von Kahlen and Anne Barbara, a mismatched couple—he a soldier turned ambitious housewife, and she an impoverished housekeeper—whose relationship is, at first, less sentimental than transactional. His first romantic partner, high-class Idelle Hélène (Kristin Kugath Thorpe), is unavailable. She has been set apart by her father to marry her evil, wealthy cousin, the evil landowner Friedrich de Schinkel (Simon Benberg). When we first meet Anne-Barbara, she is happily married to Johannes (Morten Hee Andersen). They both worked for De Schinkel before they escaped. Only when fate intervenes – de Schinkel kills Johannes, von Kahlin loses his other workers and finds it difficult to ask for help – Ludwig and Anne Barbara’s relationship begins to develop into a deeper alliance. Their first sexual encounter is framed as a practical matter. It gets very cold up there in the Danish meadows. With firewood running low, sharing a bed makes economic sense.

Aki Kaurismäki Fallen leaves, which is the closest thing to an old-fashioned love story between the global rivals this year, and contains many classic romantic comedy moments. But each is given a sarcastic touch. Lonely hearts Ansa (Golden Globe nominee Alma Pöysti) and Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) have a cute rendezvous at a bus stop where he passes out drunk. Their first date involves a shared coffee without any conversation, followed by a stoic viewing of a Jim Jarmusch zombie comedy. The dead don’t die. “They could never have done that,” Ansah says wryly after the film. “There were a lot of zombies.” It’s not exactly a special moment.

“This is not a typical Hollywood romance story — it’s not about the famous or the rich, it’s about ordinary people, people who are lonely and outcast but still yearn for something else,” says Puesti. “It may not be a happily ever after, but there’s companionship. That’s something.”

This story first appeared in the December stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter. Click here to subscribe.