A review of the French film “The Tasting”
This is a small French film from 2022 that would never be shown in most British cinemas, but I managed to catch it at the Ventnor Film Society on the Isle of Wight. It is a romantic comedy which has much humour in the first half but then progressively features more serious issues of life and death. It is set in the beautiful medieval city of Troyes, situated within the Champagne wine region, and there is some smart cinematography such as use of reflections.
The love match is not the classic one of the rom-com genre. The couple are middle-aged characters who have issues: Hortense is a midwife in his forties who longs to have a child of her own, while Jacques is a wine merchant in his sixties who is not supposed to be drinking and hosts the wine-tasting of the title. These lost souls are played convincingly and affably by Isabelle Carré and Bernard Campan and you just long for their happiness.