Same Old Song

Same Old Song (On connaît la chanson, 1997) is Alain Resnais' bittersweet French comedy you can watch online on iFILM. Mid-conversation, the characters suddenly burst into song — lip-syncing snatches of old pop hits, letting borrowed voices confess what they can't say themselves.

The tangle plays out among a handful of Parisians. Camille, a history scholar moonlighting as a tour guide, is pursued by Simon, who writes radio plays and sells flats to pay the bills. Camille, though, has fallen for Marc — Simon's own boss. Her sister Odile hunts for a bigger apartment, while an old acquaintance, Nicolas, drifts back into town and becomes everyone's reluctant confidant.

Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri wrote the script and act in it too; the film swept seven César Awards, best picture among them. Resnais dedicated it to Dennis Potter, whose television work pioneered the trick of characters miming to records. The result is funny and quietly sad at once — a study of how hard it is to just say what you feel. Stream Same Old Song (1997) online on iFILM.