Beloved

Beloved (Les bien-aimés, 2011) is a French musical drama by Christophe Honoré — watch online on iFILM. Real-life mother and daughter Catherine Deneuve and Chiara Mastroianni play a fictional mother and daughter across four decades of love and loss. Also in the cast: Ludivine Sagnier, Louis Garrel, and Czech filmmaker Miloš Forman, making a rare on-screen acting appearance.

The story begins in 1960s Paris, where young Madeleine turns love into a lifelong habit. Decades pass. Her daughter Véra — same restless heart, different city, different era — ends up retracing her mother's steps in early-2000s London. Neither of them learns from the other. That is sort of the point.

Honoré built the film around sung interludes instead of spoken dialogue — not a Hollywood musical, but the French tradition where a feeling too large for words becomes a melody instead. It competed in the main selection at Cannes 2011. A quiet argument that every generation makes the same romantic mistakes, just in different clothes. Stream Beloved (2011) online on iFILM.