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It's mid-life crisis time for Parisian philosophy professor Martin (Berling). Separated from his wife Sophie (Dombasle), and bored with his lecturing duties, he prepares to sublimate his energies into a book. But Martin begins an affair with Cecilia (Guillemin), a teenage artists' model, and his passion magnifies an uncontrollable obsession, especially when he finds out she's seeing another man...
Male sexual infatuation that descends into self-destruction is hardly a new plot-line. Yet director Cedric Kahn, adapting Alberto Moravia's novel, manages to give the material a twist. Crucially Cecilia isn't a conventional object of desire: she's a plain, plump girl who isn't remotely interested in talking to Martin - and the more he interrogates her after their bedroom liaisons, the less she says, which increases his erotic fixation.
L'Ennui resolutely refuses to explain the actions of its protagonists, while its escalating absurdity pays comic dividends.
