Do opposites ever really attract?
Not as often as you might think in real life, but often enough it seems for many a romantic comedy to hang its divergent storytelling upon the premise and see where competing life views may take it.
It certainly works Christmas Flow, a French limited series (just three short, perfectly-formed episodes) which well and truly embraces the idea of two completely different people coming together on unexpectedly shared ground, and finding that maybe there is more that unites them than separates them.
That last part of the paragraph should tip you off that, on the surface at least, there’s not a lot that is wildly original about Christmas Flow; it’s not a fatal issue since very few romantic comedies step too stridently or fully away the usual rom-com recipe.
Frankly, why would you? People want to believe that soulmates will find themselves, no matter their life situation, and that they will do it despite a host of societal and personal obstacles and that yes, it will all take place at Christmastime, the most impossibly romantic time of the year.
Certainly, Christmas Flow believes it is and uses the season to full effect, setting its narrative in the lead-up to Christmas Day and on the day itself as misogynist rapper (though with a heart of gold naturally) Marcus (Tayc) and women’s activist and journalist Lila (Shirine Boutella) come into contact in the most unexpected of ways.
Or should that be places?
Both really as Marcus and Lila both find themselves in the security office at a department store, the first waiting for the police to arrive after she attacks the resident store guard who’s dealing wholly inappropriately with a customer and the latter seeking sanctuary from overly-eager fans.
Everything goes swimmingly with this most unlikely of meet-cutes until Lila realises that Marcus is that rapper, the one who has to fame on the back of sexually charged and misogynistic songs and who has recently been convicted of demeaning women in his music, a damning legal indictment paints him, many think rightly, as an enemy of decency and healthy humanity.
Certainly Lila thinks he leaves a lot to be desired, her reactions coloured not simply by her women’s rights activism as part of a collective known as Les Simones or The Simones after noted French feminist and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir but by the fact that Marcus doesn’t seem the least repentant about the wholly unhealthy attitudes upon which his staggeringly successful career is based.
They part at the department store never to meet again you suspect except, and who didn’t see that coming – everyone saw it coming! EVERYONE – that Marcus has grabbed Lila’s shopping and she’s been left with us, necessitating another meet-up at Lila’s apartment block where she lives with her mother, sister, niece and grandmother, all of whom are either besotted with Marcus, reputation notwithstanding or furious with him.
Quite why he goes there isn’t clear to either his manager Zack (Walid Ben Mabrouk) – who by the way falls for Lila’s friend Alice (Marion Séclin) giving the audience two “awww” moments for the price of one – or really Marcus himself but it’s clear at this point that the either adored or pilloried music artist is restless, unhappy with the mould he has been shoved into by his Svengali-like musical maestro Pascal (Stéphan Wojtowicz) and wanting to get back to his musical and personal roots, though what that looks like he doesn’t know.
He also appears to be restive romantically too, in a social media-ready relationship with New Age-goddess Mel (Camille Lou) who seems to genuinely love Marcus but who is equally enamoured of her Instagram and TikTok followers too who hang on her every earnest but ultimately vacuous word.
It’s clear that whatever their differences and they are considerable that Marcus and Lila, who has struggles of her own when Les Simones is bought out by a corporate outfit who rename it Womanista, converting it into a commercially-driven site that’s less about empowering women and more about selling them stuff, are meant to be together.
That much is a given whenever you come across any rom-com, especially one set at Christmas when supposedly life in all its flawed forms, is ripe for renewal and change.
But it is patently obvious in Christmas Flow, which sets out to have a social conscience but doesn’t always succeed in realising its laudable intent, playing the actions of Lila, Alice and Jeanne (Aloïse Sauvage) more for laughs than cerebral and societal substance, that these two people need to change, for wholly different reasons and that they will need each other to do it.
The show may not exactly break new ground rom-com-wise or just generally its general storytelling, never quite satisfyingly prosecuting its more serious elements but what it does do very well, thanks to some finely-cut characterisation and stellar performances from a cast equally gifted with comedic and more serious talents, is take us into the heart of two quite different people.
Clearly needing each other to do the sort of soul deep dives their conflicted lives have been crying out for, Lila and Marcus open to each other about childhood regrets, secrets and the host of things you only really disclose to sone you recognise as a soulmate, even if that’s not initially obvious on the surface.
Whatever their disagreements and significant butting of heads, and full marks for Christmas Flow for letting their lead characters be flawed and wildly inconsistent just like mere non-rom-com mortals, Lila and Marcus are drawn to each other, two people aching for the world to change and not realising that it must begin with them and in the company of the last person they would view as an intimate catalyst.
It’s this commitment to rich raw humanity that gives Christmas Flow unexpected emotional heft and impact, and which draws you into completely in as Lila and Marcus start the considerable journey from who they were alone to who they are together – though to be fair the greater journey has to be undertaken by Marcus who rises to the occasion, redeemed as hoped – and together, at a feminist Christmas concert no less, they come together in the kind of way that makes it feel like Christmas really deserves all its hyped possibility for redemption and renewal.