‘Paul & Paulette Take A Bath’: Venice Review

Dir/scr: Jethro Massey. UK. 2024. 109mins

As hinted at by its title, Paul & Paulette Take A Bath is a playful love story in which its protagonists forge an intimate relationship that may not last. The first feature from British-French writer/director Jethro Massey takes place in Paris, where an American photographer meets a local woman with a fascination for visiting sites where notable murders or atrocities occurred. But rather than being distractingly whimsical, Paul & Paulette uses that morbid premise as a springboard to examine the impermanence of everything — even an infatuation between two people who seem destined for one another.

Encapsulates the euphoria of new love

The film premieres in Venice’s Critics’ Week and supportive reviews should help lift the profole of this delicate romance. Twentysomething arthouse viewers may be Paul & Paulette’s core audience, with good word of mouth needed to help compensate for an absence of marketable stars. 

American Paul (Jeremie Galiana) moved to France to pursue photography, but is slowly losing his passion due to lack of positive response to his work. One day in Paris, he encounters Paulette (Marie Benati), who is visiting the exact location where Marie Antoinette was beheaded — and soon recruits Paul to help her recreate the queen’s final moments. Their flirty rapport leads to a friendship, as Paul discovers that she enjoys frequenting infamous locales to experience their history firsthand. He quickly falls for Paulette, but she insists they remain platonic, issuing him two rules: he cannot ask her about her family, and they cannot touch. In due course, both stipulations will be broken as the pair find a profound connection. 

Massey (whose recent shorts include the 2020 romantic comedy Never Apply Salt To Attract A Potential Lover) easily encapsulates the euphoria of new love, but he is also wise about the obstacles that imperil any burgeoning relationship. Paul must avoid the advances of Valerie (Laurence Vaissiere), a former flame who is his new boss at his soul-sucking corporate job, while Paulette has cycled through a series of lovers — men and women — but has been in a long-term, off-and-on affair with Margarita (Margot Joseph). As much as Paulette insists to Paul that she does not want them to get involved, their chemistry is so palpable that it is inevitable that they will start hooking up. The only question is if it will lead anywhere.

Galiana has the trickier assignment of the two leads, playing Paul as a reserved young man who does not have the relationship experience of the more outgoing, confident Paulette. Paul is smitten but he’s a bit insecure and slightly threatened by her sexual history. This requires Galiana to strike a balance, not wanting the character to be too needy and ineffectual while portraying someone who will be getting a real education from this woman. By comparison, Benati shines as an adventurous soul who is attracted to Paul’s decency but remains at a slight remove. Even though Paulette is more vivacious than Paul, the actress draws out the character’s vulnerability and melancholy so that Paulette’s later revelations about her past have significant dramatic weight.

Paul & Paulette does not always successfully navigate the potential queasiness of Paulette’s odd obsession with visiting these macabre sites, with Massey leaving room for dark comedy. When the lovebirds rent a flat occupied decades ago by Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, they decide to do some kinky role-playing — with Paul volunteering to be Eva — but the film only superficially investigates what drives Paulette to see these places. As a result, the screenplay’s seemingly most provocative element is, actually, among its least interesting.