Love on the Run (L'amour en fuite) is a 1979 film directed by François Truffaut. It is the fifth and final film in Truffaut's series The Adventures of Antoine Doinel, and was explicitly created as the series' finale.
Somewhat unsurprisingly given his checkered romantic history, the marriage of Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud) and his wife Christine has gone belly-up. In fact, as the film opens he is leaving the bed of his latest girlfriend, Sabine, and meeting Christine and a judge a judge to get the decree finalized. The judge signs off and Antoine is a free man.
After getting his divorce signed off Antoine takes his son to the train station, where he sees none other than Colette (Marie-France Pisier), his semi-girlfriend from the second Antoine Doinel film, Antoine and Colette. They have a friendly chat about old times, but then Colette drops some truth bombs on Antoine about his immaturity and self-centeredness. Will Antoine finally start acting like a grownup? Will Antoine finally settle down, with Sabine, or with anyone?
Tropes:
- All Women Are Lustful: Antoine is late for his meeting with Christine at the beginning of the film, because Sabine jumps him for some more sex.
- Artistic License: An astonished Colette calls Antoine out for the BS in his memoir, specifically the part where he writes about her family moving in across from him, when it was actually the other way around (because he was stalking her). Antoine says that he fictionalized parts.
- Back for the Finale: Colette, not seen since third film in the series Stolen Kisses (and that was only a brief cameo) returns for the last movie. She's a lawyer but has had personal struggles, with the death of her child and a subsequent divorce.
- Clip Show: Nearly a third of this film is clips from the previous four Antoine Doinel films, which are presented as flashbacks.
- Contrived Coincidence: Xavier, Colette's new boyfriend, turns out to be Sabine's brother.
- Death of a Child: Shown in a flashback. Colette's daughter Julie, briefly seen as a baby in Antoine and Colette, was struck by a car and killed a few years later. It broke up Colette's marriage.
- Flashback: Many, most of which are clips from previous films in the series. A few, such as the Liliane scenes and the death of Colette's child, are original.
- Girl on Girl Is Hot: Christine and Liliane kiss each other on the cheek in a giggly, Gallic sort of way. Then Christine says "If Antoine saw that we'd never hear the end of it."
- Glasses Are Sexy: The judge finalizing Antoine's divorce turns out to be a startlingly good-looking woman. As she puts on glasses to read the decree, Antoine remembers a time when he was in bed with Christine and he specifically asked her to put her glasses back on.
- Ironic Juxtaposition: Right after the judge has signed off on Antoine's divorce decree, he looks out the window and sees a newly married couple, the wife in her wedding dress, rushing into a car.
- Last Girl Wins: Sabine, Antoine's new girlfriend at the start of the series, is the one he finally ends up with, rather than Old Flame Colette or ex-wife Christine or old girlfriend Liliane.
- Mythology Gag: Besides all the direct references to Antoine Doinel films, in non-Doinel film Day for Night someone describes the life of Leaud's character as "love and other troubles" and someone else says that would be a good title for a book. In this movie Antoine has written a fictionalized memoir called "Love and Other Troubles" ("Les Salades de L'amour"). In this movie Liliane's speech about why she's breaking up with Antoine is almost word-for-word the same speech that the same actress gives in Day for Night.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: On the train, Colette gives Antoine an honest, well-deserved dressing down, pointing out how she was never really romantically interested in him and he more or less stalked her, and how he hasn't changed and is still self-centered and interested only in himself and the romantic chase.
- Rom Com Job: Antoine has gotten a novel published and works as a proofreader for a publisher. Sabine works in a record store and moonlights repairing clocks and watches.
- Stock Footage: A rather odd use of this trope. Danièle Graule, who plays Liliane, and Jean-Pierre Leaud starred together in Truffaut film Day for Night, in which they played different characters, although hers was also named Liliane. The argument between Liliane and Antoine in this film is actually footage from Day for Night, which was reused for this film as part of the story.
- Take That, Critics!: As he's sending Alphonse off to music camp, Antoine says to practice hard, and that if he does he can be a musician. Alphonse says what if he doesn't practice hard, and Antoine says "If you don't, you'll be a music critic."
- Title Drop: Right at the end, a couple comes into the music shop and asks Sabine if she has a record. She does—it's called Love on the Run.
- Wanting Is Better Than Having: Another part of Colette's dissection of Antoine's personality, when she diagnoses his romantic adventures:"It seems all you care about is the first encounter. As soon as they're together, it's all downhill."
- Writers Cannot Do Math: Dialogue establishes that Antoine and Colette first separated three years ago, and a flashback shows that Alphonse was a toddler. But in this movie Alphonse is a boy of at least eight.
