If the sensitive coming-of-age love story is a well-worn tradition in gay cinema, Come Undone is at the very least a superior example of it, directed with restraint, emotion, and a syncopated rhythm that flows from the quicksilver editing and tripartite narrative structure. Director and co-scribe Lifshitz flashes back and forward between three narrative threads, letting each unwind with an easy hand. In the first, Mathieu (Elkaïm) is leaving town on a train. In the second, he and his troubled family (mother Reymond, bedridden with grief after the death of another child; sulky sister Legrix; and Matheron) vacation in a French seaside town, where Mathieu meets Cédric (Rideau), a beach bum who sells waffles on the boardwalk while waiting for trade school to begin. In the third, a wan, almost unrecognizable Mathieu has his stomach graphically pumped after a suicide attempt and agrees to convalesce for eight days in the care of a psychiatrist (Kerdaffrec). The linchpin of the film is, of course, its second story — the romance, which begins steamily if predictably, with eye-candy love scenes and boyish bonhomie. Yet the film evolves into something entirely more impressive and dramatically nuanced as Mathieu juggles his family relationships and begins to suffer from depression. There’s a gravity to the story that is somehow characteristically European. Rather than a summer-romance trifle, it’s a candid depiction of the long, gravelly road from innocence to maturity, revealed moment by moment. Audiences who are strictly accustomed to conventional plotting will likely bristle a bit at how much remains unsaid, unseen, and unresolved, but the discontinuous story (especially the ending) feels real because of these choices — viewers connect the dots between the three plot lines, and, as in life, there are no pat answers to where the relationship ends and where recovery begins. Likewise, the actors’ performances are unshowy; of the supporting cast, Matheron makes perhaps the strongest impression as Annick, the family friend and Mathieu’s mother surrogate, while Elkaïm is something of a cipher, withdrawn and inaccessible. Other aspects of the film are similarly low-key, with a slight, intermittent guitar score by Perry Blake, parsimonious sound, and frank, portrait-like camerawork. This light touch may not give Come Undone instant feel-good fan appeal, but the result is often a thought-provoking surprise.
This article appears in July 20 • 2001.