They are great friends like one is at thirteen: rebellious, curious, hopeful, doubtful, dreaming of girls and glory – they share everything. Paul is rich. Emile is poor. They leave Aix, "go up" to Paris, join the community in Montmartre and Batignolles. They haunt the same bars, sleep with the same women, spit on those who make it, bathe naked, starve and then eat too much, drink absinthe, draw during the day the models they caress at night, travel 30 hours by train to see a sunset... Today, Paul is a painter, Emile is a writer. Glory has passed Paul by. Emile has everything: fame, money, the perfect woman Paul loved before. They judge and admire each other, they compete. They get lost, like a couple that cannot stop loving each other.

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The resounding failure of the 2013 comedy It Happened in Saint-Tropez has likely pushed Danièle Thompson to rethink her penchant for ensemble casts (Avenue Montaigne, Change of Plans). Her sixth movie therefore moves away from laughter to venture into the prestige biopic, about the complex friendship between Paul Cézanne and Emile Zola, played by Guillaume Gallienne and Guillaume Canet. Unfortunately, the director cannot avoid the pitfalls of the genre in this falsely romantic movie that is a bit boring, too academic, and contrived. Despite a lively performance by Guillaume Gallienne and solid supporting roles (Sabine Azéma, Déborah François), Cézanne and I is too mechanical, too rigid, and fails to convey the passion that drove artists at the heart of the story.