Along Came Love 

Along Came Love begins with newsreel footage of women who had collaborated with or had relationships with Nazis during World War II. The women have been beaten, their heads shaved. In some cases, swastikas have been painted on their bodies. We see a pregnant woman desperately scrubbing the symbol from her swollen belly. The film cuts suddenly to the early ’50s: Madeleine is working as a waitress at a coastal French restaurant in Normandy as she raises her baby. Such sudden ellipses in time and circumstance propel what turns out to be a sprawling tale of history and fate.
One day, on the beach, she encounters François, a soft-spoken and cultured student whose family owns a large house on the shore. A quiet relationship begins. She confesses about her past; he admits to having just ended a serious relationship. Eventually, they marry, but the story does not move in predictable ways. The couple befriends a charming Black American soldier, to whom both are attracted. A disastrous ménage à trois leads Madeleine to confirm that her husband’s earlier romantic relationship was with a man. This revelation puts their relationship on tenterhooks. Then François inherits a family fortune and the couple have a child. The first child, now a teenager, begins demanding information about his German father. The ensuing, messy tangle of history, sexuality, and family veers in troubling directions. Decades of twists and turns are packed into two hours, as director Katell Quillévéré continually shifts our sympathies and melodrama careens toward tragedy.

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