Reviews & Ratings for
A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later More at IMDbPro »Un homme et une femme, 20 ans déjà (original title)

7 out of 8 people found the following review useful:

Less a sequel, more a reflection

Author: TrevorAclea from London, England
24 September 2007

A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later/ Un Homme et Une Femme: Vingt Ans Déjà is one of those forgotten belated sequels, and generally hated by those who do remember it. The budget is bigger, the plot more expansive, the relationships less tentative, the stunt driving more spectacular and this time the whole film is not only in colour but CinemaScope as well, so on the surface the film only has the characters to really link it to the original, although even they've moved on in life. Aimee's character has become a film producer and, in the wake of a disastrous super-production set during the liberation of Paris that looks like outtakes from Lelouch's own Les Uns et Les Autres/Bolero, has the idea of revisiting her almost love-story in much the same way that after the disaster of Les Grands Moments Lelouch hurriedly produced the original film to stave off the threat of bankruptcy, bringing the pair back together. At first Trintignant's reluctant to give his permission, disappointed that she asked to meet him for the first time in twenty years for a business proposition rather than a romantic one, but his curiosity wins out. Naturally, romance is back on the cards, but neither that nor the film work out quite as expected… The opening certainly bodes ill, with a horrendous 80s version of Francis Lai's theme giving way to an extended sequence of fast driving stunts and a scene of a power-dressed Anouk Aimee striding through a set filled with hundreds of extras, and it certainly takes a while to get over the change in style. Only one scene really harks back to the feel of the original, as Aimée's steel dissolves and she briefly becomes the young woman she was twenty years earlier as the two meet in a restaurant and talk about what could or should have been. But otherwise this is a very different animal to the original, with the two characters existing in worlds where the possibility of love is no longer everything and the director obviously torn between revisiting the first film and creating something new as if both desperate to resist the trap of nostalgia but simultaneously in thrall to it.

Although generally dismissed as a pointless cash-in, it's actually a neat exercise in semi-autobiographical directorial rumination, reflecting on the original film and what it meant for its participants (characters and filmmakers alike) as much as it does on their love story. It's not exactly Lelouch's 8½, but there's a playful sense of indecision about the piece as he throws in a real-life killing involving an escaped mental patient that seems initially gratuitous but later assumes prominence as Aimée – and, by proxy, Lelouch – realises that their original love story simply won't play with a modern audience and changes tack for a more sensationally commercial project. If this seems unlikely, the change in films at least has a historical precedent: Lelouch was so unhappy with Les Grands Moments that, after failing to get a distribution deal, he reputedly destroyed the negative so it could never be seen. Far more unlikely is that Aimée decides to produce her version of Un Homme et Une Femme as a musical, making this at times feel like one of Jacques Demy's darker films, although it's telling that the audience for Aimee's flop is entirely middle-aged – Lelouch clearly knows who his shrinking audience is even if he doesn't always know what kind of film he needs to make to recapture a modern mass audience.

The last section, with Trintignant lost in the desert with his suicidal lover who wants to take him with her (played by Lelouch's future wife Marie Sophie Pochat while his marriage to Evelyne Bouix – who plays Aimée's daughter here - was breaking up) seems like a third movie altogether. Not necessarily a bad one, more a "Where did that suddenly come from?" one, and it's this section that's the film's least satisfying, losing the playfulness and leaving you with the impression that, like the much less satisfying Les Uns et les Autres, this often feels like a series of scenes and plot strands that Lelouch wanted to film thrown together without ever quite finding a resolution. Like many of his films it's by no means a complete success, but it's also by no means the failure it's often painted as – chalk this one up as an ambitious and intriguingly inconsistent miss, but one that offers a lot more of interest than some of his outright successes.

7 out of 8 people found the following review useful:

Very pale sequel

Author: michelerealini from Switzerland
13 November 2005

Sometimes Claude Lelouch makes good films or masterpieces, sometimes not at all.

This sequel of "Un homme et une femme" is useless. It's not a bad movie in itself, because it's well acted, well made and very refined -high quality is a trademark in Lelouch movies. That's why I give 4 stars out of 10...

But it's a useless project. Was it necessary to go back to the story and spoil the original picture? The 1966 film is very simple -it's a masterpiece because of that. There are only Jean-Louis Trintignant and Anouk Aimée, the chemistry is incredible. The film is really poetic, we don't want to know how their love story goes on.

In the 1986 sequel we find them 20 years later -Lelouch tells us what they have become and how they meet again. There are other characters and facts which intersect with them.

As I said not a really bad movie, but it doesn't stand comparison at all with the original. It would have been better not to produce it.

12 out of 18 people found the following review useful:

Unnecessary Sequel of a Great Romance, or How to Kill a Magnificent Love Story

Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
12 February 2005

Twenty years after their affair, the promoter of the Paris-Dakar race Jean-Louis Duroc (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is called by the producer Anne Gauthier (Anouk Aimée) to Paris. After producing a movie that was a complete failure in audience, Anne intends to make a movie about their love. Meanwhile, a serial killer escapes from the hospital, and is found dead, together with the wife of his doctor. "Un Homme et Une Femme" is a delightful and charming classic romantic movie. Unfortunately, director Claude Lelouche decided to make this sequel, using the same cast, twenty years later. I do not dare to say that "Un Homme et Une Femme, 20 Ans Déjà" is a bad movie. However, it kills, for example, the magnificent open end of the original movie, showing what has happened with Jean-Louis Duroc and Anne Gauthier along twenty years. Further, there is a parallel story, and many sub-plots that are completely out of the context, mixing a romantic story with a thriller and a drama. Jean-Louis Trintignant aged too much, and Anouk Aimée is still very beautiful and elegant, but the wonderful chemistry between them is completely lost. My vote is seven because there are some good points, mainly the filming of the romance of Anne and Jean-Louis, like a movie-in-a-movie.

Title (Brazil): "Um Homem. Um Mulher: 20 Anos Depois" ("A Man. A Woman: 20 Years Later")

6 out of 8 people found the following review useful:

Just for old time's sake...

Author: nubka from United States
12 May 2006

I have a copy of this film and I do watch it from time to time. While I don't think it's so horrible, I could definitely do without the whole crazy patient/doctor/murder storyline. The rest of the movie, I like.

It's interesting to see Jean-Louis and Anne interacting with their now grown up children and to see what paths their lives took after their very brief fling. I think the chemistry is still there between them, and I think they actually look like real middle aged people, not the "perfect plastic botox people" that we so often see in today's films...

I gave this film a 8 out of 10 because(despite it's flaws)it was nice to catch up with the lives of Jean-Louis and Anne.

7 out of 10 people found the following review useful:

Did we really need this movie?

Author: embolicat from Mexico
11 February 2007

If you saw "Un Homme et un Femme" and loved it, do yourself a favor and don't watch this one.

I believe Lelouch needed a few extra bucks because this film ruins the story of the first. Did we need to know what happened to Anne and Jean-Louis 20 minutes after the first movie is over? Not really.

And even if you consider this film alone, its still a very boring flick. And pointless. The story makes too many detours with their every day life: what they do now, how they evolved, and constantly needs the support of the first film to make a little sense. At the end of it, one is left with a bitter aftertaste of having betrayed the beautiful first story. Second parts are seldom good, and this movie proves it perfectly.

3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:

A second look

Author: jotix100 from New York
27 April 2010

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Sequels to films that made an impact when they first came out are usually a let down. If we enjoyed the original, our perception on the update will probably not be as kind as when we discovered a particular movie for the first time, although there can be exceptions.

That seems to be the case with this film which we never saw when it was released. Claude Lelouch surprised the world with a story that was fresh, had two of the brightest stars of that era, and had a wonderful music score by Francis Lay. Unfortunately, for this second view at the same characters twenty years later, there are no surprises, other than the reunion of Anne and Jean-Louis as they looked twenty years later.

Anne and Jean-Louis who loved each other passionately, now are seen as middle aged individuals that are reunited after their break up, which by the way, it's never made clear why it happened, or how their passion fizzled after what one thought would be a match made in heaven. Anne, a film producer, is going through a bad period in her career. She feels the love story she experienced with Jean-Louis merits to be brought to the screen. For that purpose, she contacts him. Jean-Louis, now involved in a relationship with a younger woman, is skeptical of what Ann wants to do.

Mr. Lelouch introduces another element. Anne, being a producer, is supervising a war epic, as the film starts. The reviews are terrible. Then, she embarks in the making of another drama. The director shows the way movies are done as most of the characters lives revolve around the different sets of films in production. It is a distracting theme that adds nothing to what one thought would be the only reason for the remake of "Une homme et une femme" in the first place.

One thing did not change. Anouk Aimee shows in her mature ravishing beauty, as she lights up the screen whenever she appears. Jean-Louis Trintingnant does not fare as well. He is more of an enigma; we never warm up to him. The film disappoints because one feels manipulated by the director who brings us along with the promise of watching a relationship that went sour, fix whatever problems that got them apart, in doing so, Mr. Lelouch wastes about forty minutes of celluloid before showing the lovers together at long last!

5 out of 7 people found the following review useful:

It Could Be A Greater Movie Than It Is

Author: Rodrigo Amaro (rodrigo882008@hotmail.com) from São Paulo, Brazil
22 April 2010

In 1966 a beautiful and very artistic film with a very simple story caught the attention of many movie lovers, the romantic and deep "Un Homme et Une Femme", directed by Claude Lelouch and starred by Anouk Aimee and Jean-Louis Trintignant playing the title roles. The movie won the Palm D'Or at Cannes and 2 Academy Awards and was well acclaimed by the public and the critics. 20 years later the same team returned and that return was named properly as "Une Homme et Une Femme, 20 ans Deja" ("A Man and a Woman, 20 Years Later"). The result is quite different of the original film but it has it's good moments and it's full of charm.

Jean-Louis (Trintignant) and Anne Gauthier (Aimee) were a happy couple in the 1960's but for some odd reason they split and follow different paths. Both got married with different persons. The former race car pilot married with a younger woman and now he drives in rallies; the actress is now a film producer married with a TV newscaster. Anne and Jean-Louis have the chance to meet each other again when Anne is producing a movie about their relationship and she wants his consent to make the film and remember the good old days, when they met, they got involved with each other and the song of their lives. But their partners aren't satisfied with that meeting and their jealousy might disturb the calm and lovely encounter.

OK, many have said that this film was unnecessary sequel, that it's weaker than the original film, that this a waste of time and that sometimes was hard to follow because it has an minor plot that looks dislocated of the movie and only near of the end you understand why the minor plot appeared. My opinion over "Un Homme et Une Femme, 20 ans Deja" is that Lelouch missed a good chance to make a great movie, way better than it is. It looks like a poor sequel of a great film mixed with Truffaut's "Le Nuit Americaine" ("Day by Night"). In Truffaut's movie we see all that happens during the making of a film, the actors relationship and the problems that happens while a movie is made. Same thing here. We don't have the chance to see the emotional changes between Anne and Jean-Louis, we've only seen talking about the film she's making and a little bit of their memories. It could have been like "Before the Sunset" was to "Before Sunrise", the reunion of what a passionate couple and their views on life, romance, marriage, fears, secrets, and other similar things discussed by couples when they split and met again years later. It lacked intelligence here, it lacked humor also. But at least you can see the physical difference between Anne and Jean-Louis. Lelouch alternate a few moments with scenes from "Un Homme et Une Femme" and this film. She's still beautiful, very charming; he looks like a villain taken of some B-movie, with beard, nothing similar to what he used to be, seductive and handsome.

Francis Lai's theme music appears here in a Jazz style, way different of the original film but it's still good, a very romantic theme. I liked this sequel because of its nostalgic moments, the city of Paris is beautifully shot, the behind the scenes of Anne's film is very interesting and to see two great talented Jean-Louis Trintignant and Anouk Aimee, they're great together even if the movie is weak. If it wasn't for the scene where Jean-Louis's wife goes crazy in the desert I might give an 10. 9/10

4 out of 6 people found the following review useful:

A bittersweet viewing experience

Author: Amiesart from New York City, USA
11 August 2001

Having exquisite memories of the first film, "A Man and a Woman", I looked forward to seeing the sequel, "A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later."

Yes, there were the famous faces and superb actors (Aimee and Trintigant), looking very little the worse for wear; in other words, wonderful. So expressive, both of them, in facial expression, mood expressions and fantastic acting. However, they are in a losing vehicle, with this film. It is so unmoving, that it relies on several subplots to impart to it some action. Hardly fair to two such stellar actors! They deserve better. And the viewer, alas, deserves better. I am, however, grateful for small things - and if seeing those two magnetic characters again thrilled and elated me...what's a plot? Yes, I would recommend it to any viewer who feels as I do about great actors. Just don't look for anything more; simply bask in their respective glows. Hence, my title: A Bittersweet Viewing Experience.

3 out of 5 people found the following review useful:

A mixed bag.

Author: gridoon
7 May 2002

The movie begins badly, with some racing scenes that go on for so long you may start thinking you're watching a James Bond flick. Then it wastes some more time by following the characters in their everyday activities, which are of little interest. But when the couple from "A Man And A Woman' is finally reunited, Lelouch shows that he still hasn't lost his touch when it comes to quiet dialogue scenes, in which expressions speak as loudly as words. And the idea of filming a movie ABOUT the story we saw in the first movie makes for an intriguing re-examination of the original from an unusual perspective - the perspective of the fictional character who starred in it. But Lelouch still can't stay concentrated on the things that really matter, and even when he later introduces a new, completely unexpected story thread (the "adventure" in the desert), he keeps intercutting it with another film-within-a-film, which is boring and pointless. The final impression is that of a film with many good things in it, but also a whole lot of flaws. (**1/2)

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