Not since Robert Bresson defined realist cinema with his masterful Au Hasard Balthasar has a film about the friendship between a human and a donkey been as moving as My Donkey, My Lover & I (French: Antoinette dans les Cévennes), a film that celebrates love just as much as it does evoke a lot of genuine laughter. The film, written and directed by Caroline Vignal, tells the story of a school teacher who, when learning that the man with whom she has been having a torrid affair is setting off on a holiday with his family to replicate a journey taken by the author Robert Louis Stevenson through the mountainous region of The Cévennes, decides to take the same trip in the hopes of crossing paths with the man she is so deeply in love with, not realizing how this is truly a bizarre, and perhaps even extremely inappropriate. Taking her cue from Stevenson, she rents a donkey and sets off on a hike through the mountains, only to discover that there is more to this journey than she expected. The film is a strange but fascinating character study that uses its time to tell a story that will surely divide audiences, depending on both how much we can condone the behaviour of the protagonist, and the extent to which we can believe someone can be driven to the point of such desperation. Regardless of which way we look at it, My Donkey, My Lover & I is a charming comedy that may be extremely slight, but has enough heart and soul to warrant our time, which is often more than many more high-concept comedies may have in their arsenal.

They say all is fair in love and war, which seems to be the general motivation behind this film, which is perhaps slightly more peculiar than it needed to be, especially in how it portrays the main character’s fervent desire to find her lover amongst the idyllic landscapes of The Cévennes, which she initially thinks will just be pleasant terrain on which she could take a leisurely stroll, not realizing how it is far more difficult than most would imagine. Vignal, who made her first film in two decades (after the charming Girlfriends, another small-scale film that looks critically at the idea of romance, just through the eyes of a younger group of characters – this film almost feels like a development on some of those ideas, only through a more mature lens) works through a range of interesting conversations in the construction of this film, which touches on the idea of romance, just from a very different perspective, one that is drawn less from the cliched image that mainstream cinema has constructed, and more from a place of almost literary significance. It helps that the film is anchored by the motif of Robert Louis Stevenson’s journey through this same region, as captured in his book Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (which could be an alternative title for this film, since that is exactly what it is replicating), which gives it some grounding, and prevents it from being entirely delusional – had we not known that the intention of the main character to follow in the footsteps of a literary giant, it’s unlikely that the idea of voyaging through the mountains with a donkey would make much sense. Many different ideas are in motion throughout this film, and while My Donkey, My Lover & I is not particularly revolutionary or complex, it does have its moments of brilliance in this regard.

Any critically-thinking viewer will look at My Donkey, My Lover & I and feel somewhat divided, since this is a film that focuses on a woman overstepping boundaries and venturing into the realm of being very close to a stalker, all under the umbrella of being done as a result of her undying love for a man that she believes to be her soulmate, despite his own protests against such grandiose sentiments. The film uses comedy almost as an excuse for the protagonist’s behaviour – Antoinette is portrayed as a woman who is so deeply in love with a man she knows she can never have, so much that she risks everything in order to follow him, believing that this great demonstration of her love will only win his affections even more. A surface-level glance at the premise will lead the viewer to think this is a film that actually condones her actions, when in reality, the majority of My Donkey, My Lover & I entails the audience laughing hysterically at her misadventures, feeling very little sympathy for a woman whose erratic behaviour is the source of a lot of humour. This is a film about obsession, one that is only separated from films like Fatal Attraction based on the beautiful landscapes and very cheerful tone (and perhaps even the fact that the main character may be obsessive, but she is not depraved enough to lack all morality), and it is important that the viewer is able to draw the distinction between a woman so deeply in love that she is willing to momentarily abandon her life for the sake of a man, and someone who is merely just undergoing this journey in an effort to prove that she can accomplish it, which is eventually what this film becomes. Midway through My Donkey, My Lover & I, the plot shifts away from Antoinette’s pursuit of her lover, and starts to become a wonderfully effervescent tale of a woman finding herself through undergoing a journey that entails reflection and a growth in her self-awareness, which is where it is at its most effective.

From the first moment she appears on screen, we can tell that the character of Antoinette is someone who we can’t necessarily consider to be logical, and the film uses her as a figurehead for its often strange but compelling sojourns into the razor-thin division between passionate romance and deranged obsession. Laure Calamy is terrific at the titular character, a woman who is so compelled in her adoration for a married man, she is more than willing to pursue him, even through the most harsh terrain, since her love seemingly knows very few limits. This is not a role that seems challenging at the outset, and it’s probably true that any actress with a penchant for comedy could effectively play the role. Yet, Calamy is still turning in a performance that feels a lot deeper than what we see on screen most of the time – she’s able to tap into the inherently self-deprecating nature of the character, and she brings a lot of warmth to a role that could have easily have been deeply unlikable without someone with the ability to find the nuance in an otherwise flighty, opaque character. As much as My Donkey, My Lover & I may revolve around a romance between two people, it really is more about a journey of self-discovery, where Antoinette learns that she can find herself through looking around and realizing that there is much more to life than just succumbing to her desires. By the time the film hits its stride, we have almost entirely forgotten about her lover, with the real brilliance coming in the unorthodox friendship between the main character and her four-legged companion, who is a much better travel partner than her skittish and nervous lover, who proves to be a far less endearing person than she imagined.

My Donkey, My Lover & I may be one of the first instances of a one-sided romantic comedy – we’ve seen instances of characters being so driven in their love for a particular person that they find themselves in precarious situations, but rarely have we seen one in which the romance doesn’t come in the form of finally gaining the adoration of their paramour, but rather finding themselves in the process. The film grapples a very narrow boundary between being charming and morally corrupt, with the primary distinction being in how the character is likeable but never allowed to come across as all that level-headed. This distinction is absolutely vital, and leads to a film that is earnest, funny and always insightful, which makes a considerable difference, especially considering this is not a necessarily complex film, not one that is all that original on a conceptual level. It’s solid entertainment that allows us to spend some time with this delightfully delusional protagonist who finds herself undergoing a series of hilarious misadventures, which prove to ultimately be both her downfall in terms of pursuing a man who clearly does not love her in the same way, as well as the point in which she realizes that she is worth much more than just playing second-fiddle to someone who clearly does not value her as much as she would like. A charming and adorably funny diversion, My Donkey, My Lover & I is a lovely film with a lot of heart and an even bigger sense of humour, especially when it comes to the inherent foibles that we all tend to exhibit from time to time.