One more "Boy Meets Girl" story? Just another Rom-Com? Not really. First things first, you will never prevent boys from meeting girls and the reverse, so there will always be love stories and thank heaven for them when they manage to rise above the clichés and the cheesiness too many of them bathe in. A defect mercifully avoided by this particular affair of the heart. A mere look at the title ("Les Combattants" - literally "The Fighters" -) is an obvious guarantee that you will be spared the stale old exasperating Cha Ba Da Ba Da tale. Actually, neither the characters nor the situation are conventional or predictable. Take our young Romeo for example: Arnaud is a young carpenter who does not show any real passion for his trade. Docile, mild-mannered and easy-going, he takes life as it comes; in other words he still has to find himself. For her part Madeleine, the girl he meets, has little in common with the frail, sensitive Juliet. Three adjectives best qualify her: brusque, burly and nihilistic. Completely out of this world, the horsey lady has an obsession: mastering survival skills in order to... get through the end of the world! As you can see, not the standard Rom-Com, all the more as the stereotypical gender roles are reversed: Miss Headstrong is the dominant one while Mr. Least Line of Resistance yields and follows... at least for a time.For all the rhetoric, though, this is a love story. Even if it looks just the opposite. Even if it is set in a more and more unusual context as the minutes pass. And it is precisely the odd settings and the crazy story developments that prevent boredom. Unique in its kind "Les combattants' has romance bloom... within the framework of a training session for wannabee paratroopers and, a little later, in the middle of a survival experience in the grip of untamed nature!Nothing wishy-washy to fear as you can see. On the contrary in the end you will have been told the touchingly serious story of two creatures who attract each other but have to struggle to find who they really are and to make out how they can relate to each other satisfyingly. Another quality of Thomas Cailley and Claude Le Pape's screenplay, lies in the fact the two characters, a bit caricatural at the beginning, evolve in the course of the action and gain in depth. The last added value is the film's interesting examination of what it is like to be young in today's France, a country once prosperous and proud of itself which now seems to have lost its bearings. Both Madeleine and Arnaud, each in their manner, are disoriented and do not know where they are going. A statement that, by extension, can be applied to a big share of French youth and brings the movie a rich sociological touch.Always where you least expect him, Thomas Cailley succeeds in combining several genres (documentary, comedy, romance, psychological study, army movie, disaster movie) without ever sinking into confusion. So much so that "Les combattants" appears as a unique example of its kind. Well-served by its actors (delusively bland Kevin Azaïs and always under pressure Adèle Haenel), it will surprise and amuse you while giving you - Thank God in a casual way - food for thought.

I saw this movie with my high school (I'm French, so I apologize if I make any languages mistakes), and really liked it. The actors really did a great job, and during the whole movie, their acting seemed really natural. The characters have very different points of view on the future and group life. Madeleine is trying to be self-sufficient in expectation of the apocalyptic future she believes in. To Arnaud, future means the end of the summer, and in the first part of the movie, his family takes the decisions for him. Even though, their love-story is believable, and Adèle Haenel and Kevin Azaïs made a great on-screen couple ! Also, the score is really lively and goes well with the movie. This movie is very different of most of the recent French movies, and it's a good thing if it worked, I hope it will stimulate others French directors to make different movies.A really good first long time feature for Thomas Cailley, and I encourage everyone to see "Love at first fight" ! To me, it doesn't deserve a 8 or more out of 10, but this is a different movie from what we are used to see. Sometimes, this movie is a comedy, or a rom com, but it also is a movie about the army and the survival in a wild place.

Starring Adele Haenel and Kevin AzaisWritten by Thomas Cailley and Claude Le PapeDirected by Thomas CailleyIt's a while since I've watched a foreign subtitled movie and this is one of those hidden gems that you sometimes find on the TV listings.It's a boy meets girl romance with a difference. It's quirky, wonderfully understated and quite mesmerizing to watch. This is a gentle film without any big plots or car chases but I really enjoyed it. It's well written with a nice touch of humour throughout.Good film.8/10

I don't even know how much this film falls under the "rom-com" category, although it is classified as one. There are comic elements as much as in real life, so nothing that emphasized or exaggerated. The guy's crush on the girl is evident pretty soon, because he takes every chance he gets to be in her company. The girl on the other hand is cold towards him and understandably so, since they met on bad terms (hence the English translation of the title, love at first fight). The girl is a cold person in general, at least until you get to know her better. I don't think it was actually love at first fight. But I do think they were interested in one another when the fight was sprung onto them. It was both exciting and humiliating (mostly for the guy). I think he was preoccupied with thoughts of the girl because it was a weird and uncommon experience for him. She intrigued him. And so when the girl's parents hired the guy to build them a shed next to their house, it was an irresistible opportunity to observe the 'eccentric' girl and get closer to her. Honestly, the girl had issues with anger management, she felt self-entitled and was downright mean sometimes. Stubborn, also. I like that she 'took no sh*t' and it was admirable how persistent she was in learning survival. She was preparing herself in case of a world crisis. And it's not even 'in case' anymore. It's just a matter of when and what will come first, and will it catch us in our lifetime. Although the boot camp was a joke in opposition to what she came for, the concept of something like a survival course attracted me. The movie also shows us how dangerous living alone can be, and how hard "passing the time" can be, unless you're with someone you're attracted to :) There was only one intimate scene and one sudden kiss some time before it. They never became a giggly and gooey couple, it's not in their nature. I think that the guy is tougher than he seems and the girl is 'softer' than she seems. They just take a different approach towards things. The guy is more easy going and passionate, he has his head in the clouds and is easily influenced. He's a nice guy. The girl keeps to herself and is more goal-orientated, and in doing so is passive in other aspects of life. She has a 'dont mess with me' aura to her and she aspires to be tough. In my opinion, they complement each other well. They bring out the stuff that's less noticeable in one another. They went through some phases of negligence and got burned. Literally. But in the end, there's no denying they both had a lot of fun and learned some good lessons. French films hardly ever disappoint. Something worth noting is that this film has an original soundtrack and it's pretty cool. I'd recommend this movie if you're looking for something 'light'. As in, not so extreme that you'll cry your eyes out, or be filled with hate and fear, and not so sappy that it kills brain cells. 10 - 3 because the acting wasn't that good. That's usually how it is with two people who like each other. It's mostly them goggling at one another. I didn't feel that much passion between them. The culmination of course was their scene of intimacy. I have to admit it got my heart beating faster and some other things haha I'm sorry for constantly referring to them as 'the guy' and 'the girl', I forgot their names and didn't think it would be that significant. That's that.