Lover for a Day: Philippe Garrel’s film takes a look at a young woman rebounding from a traumatic breakup with her father and her young lover. It is a simple story, but the many conversations between this trio touch upon the idea of being in love, of not being in love, and how fidelity or the lack thereof impacts a relationship. Esther Garrel plays the somewhat traumatized young woman well enough, and her flirty father is played with aplomb by Éric Caravaca, but the film truly belongs to Louise Chevillotte, She plays the young mistress, the person who pushes boundaries further with her behaviour; the performance has the benefit of a larger emotional breadth, and she makes the best out of it. Aesthetically, the film is reduced to its minimum, with cinematographer Renato Berta elegantly capturing the action in black-and-white, Paris being presented as a lived-in city without its traditional charm, and Jean-Louis Aubert composing the film’s beautiful but spare musical score.