Film

All About Them

Name: All About Them
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Released: 2015
Cast: Anaïs Demoustier, Félix Moati, Sophie Verbeeck, Patrick d'Assumçao, Laure Calamy

A French romantic comedy about a woman caught in a tangle with a couple, where everyone is sleeping with everyone and lying to everyone else. Breezy and absurd, it finds comedy in the chaos of desire and deceit rather than judgment. Perfect if you like your romance messy, witty, and refreshingly non-judgmental about human contradiction.

TMDb rating

3.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy giddy, talky romantic comedies where the characters' self-deceptions are the joke, and you don't mind being unsure whom to root for.

Skip it if you need likable heroes or a story that moves forward, since this one circles its emotional knot in a short run and keeps re-arranging the same people.

What it asks of you: Expect to track a tangle of lies closely for barely an hour and a half, with a light tone even as the deceptions pile up.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Heartbeats2010

Another Franck Dubosc film about desire tangling three people into knots. Gorgeous, elegiac, and frank about how love doesn't care about fairness or logic. A spiritual predecessor.

But It's melancholy where All About Them is comic, and some will find its emotional restraint cool to the point of distance.

Tiny Furniture2010

Lena Dunham's debut about a young woman navigating messy romantic tangles in New York. Similarly funny about human messiness without needing anyone to be the villain. Sharp dialogue and real awkwardness.

But Dunham's particular brand of oversharing wasn't for everyone, and the film's self-centeredness can feel exhausting if you're not onboard from the start.

Happy, Texas1999

A crime comedy where con men pretend to be gay wedding planners in a small town. Charming, silly, full of deception and unexpected affection. Same DNA as a Dubosc film but in drag and Americana.

But It's deeply lightweight and deliberately dumb in places. If you need substance or social commentary, this isn't it.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from All About Them

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Mother and the Whore1973

Same structural premise—a tangle of three people, all tangled with each other—but shot as an intellectual provocation rather than a romantic comedy. The comedy is in what desire reveals about us.

Godard's three-hour essay on a man and two women in Paris, all talking in circles about love and sex and freedom. It IS the conversation. Funny in the way Dubosc is funny—finding absurdity in human contradiction, but with existential weight.

But It's 1973 experimental cinema: minimal plot, long takes, characters debating philosophy. Patience required. Subtitles a must.

Climax2018

A group of dancers in an isolated rehearsal space slowly unravels over a night. Like All About Them but where desire and deceit curdle into something sinister. Hypnotic and utterly disturbing.

But It's aggressively bleak, sexually explicit, and the second half abandons comedy entirely for dread. A wildly different tone from what you're expecting.

Lovesong2017

A queer romance between two women across decades, told in beautiful fragments. Explores obsession, loyalty, and the weird geometry of two people who can't quite leave each other alone.

But It's deliberately fragmented and non-linear, which some find poetic and others find frustratingly opaque.

Weekend2011

A British indie about two men who meet for a weekend and the conversation that peels back every layer of who they are. Intimate, funny, achingly honest about love and sex and vulnerability.

But It's mostly dialogue in tight spaces. If you need plot or action, you'll feel marooned.

Fleabag2016

Same tonal ambition: finding comedy and humanity in a person's capacity for simultaneous deceit and tenderness. Both treat deception not as character flaw but as survival strategy.

A British series where the protagonist lies to everyone constantly—to others, to us, to herself. Six episodes of withering wit and absolute authenticity about contradiction and wanting what destroys us. Phoebe Waller-Bridge's masterwork.

But Fast-paced and very British in its humour. Some find the protagonist's behaviour unforgivable even as the show makes you love her.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl2015

Like All About Them, it refuses to moralize about desire or treat people as simply good or bad. Everyone is contradictory. Everyone lies. Everyone is human.

Marielle Heller's film about a teenager in love with her mother's boyfriend. Animated sequences, '70s San Francisco, a girl narrating her own contradiction: she knows this is wrong and she wants it anyway. Funny and disturbing in equal measure.

But It's about an adult man pursuing a minor. The film doesn't flinch from that, which makes some people uncomfortable even when the film itself is critical.