I certainly have a problem with Nicolas Maury: be he straight ("les envoutés" ) or gay (this movie) ,his affected delivery gets on my nerves ;his hangdog look is more exasperating than moving ; it's just an opinion,and some (particularly the highbrow critics) find him sublime:there's no accounting for taste .
"Boys like us" also tells the sentimental problems of three gays but the results were always credible and the movie ,whilst showing respect for the audience , was accessible to anyone .
This one may make some take to their heels after 30 minutes because the scenes don't make any dramatic progression ;but fortunately , Natalie Baye appears as a mom who calls her boy "chiffon" (=rag) ,hence the title ;Baye could blow anyone off the screen but her part is underwritten,and she was never given a single chance to really shine ; she's not so over possessive a mother ,one has seen worse in this field. Theo Christine gives his director a run for his money in the scene by the pool , one of the rare ones in which the movie seems to go somewhere .On the other hand, Laura Calmy's hysterical fit of anger is absolutely unbearable :did she want to surpass Liz Taylor in "who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? Happily , she's got only one scene !
The movie is supposed to depict a gay man's jealousy ,but it's hardly obvious (his partner,a vet ,has an affair with another man,his mother is helped by a man who might take her from him ,but these scenes are few and far between) and it does not compare favorably with Chabrol's "l'enfer" .
