Review: ‘Claire’s Knee’ — Caustic, Intelligent Romantic Comedy

I took an unintentionally long break from the films of Eric Rohmer, last watching a film of his way back in January of this year. Of course, his body of work is one that I’ve written about reasonably often at this point, having discussed all of his Tales of the Four Seasons last year. And because of this, I went into my viewing of Claire’s Knee expecting to have relatively little to say about it that I hadn’t already said about one (or multiple) of Rohmer’s other films. Rohmer is somewhat similar to Woody Allen in this regard — many of his films echo similar themes and core ideas, while also maintaining a mostly relaxed formal approach which prioritises articulate, philosophical dialogue and an intense focus on character development over telling an especially complicated or eventful story.

For the first few minutes of Claire’s Knee, the fifth of Rohmer’s six moral tale films (preceded by The Girl at the Monceau Bakery, Suzanne’s Career, La Collectionneuse and My Night at Maud’s, then followed by Love in the Afternoon) it felt as though I would be right — this film would serve as a slight variation on some of Rohmer’s usual themes and applications of form, nothing new or…