Comment je me suis disputé … (ma vie sexuelle)

29-year-old Paul Dédalus (Mathieu Amalric) is a lecturer at a Parisian university and stuck in a dead end: he neither manages to finish his long overdue doctoral thesis in philosophy, nor to end his ten-year relationship with his girlfriend Esther (Emmanuelle Devos), even though he’s having an affair with her best friend (Marianne Denicourt). He’s also got his eye on the adventurous Valérie (Jeanne Balibar), whose diploma he’s supervising. Torn between three women and riled up by his rivalry with a colleague, who has a monkey as a pet, he ends up having a mental breakdown. Reminiscent of a Bildungsroman, this tragicomic, self-deprecating portrait of a generation of academics in their late twenties was the breakthrough for Desplechin and his alter ego Amalric, who won the César Award for Most Promising Actor. (bik)