Love in the Afternoon

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You can stream Love in the Afternoon (1972) on Max with a subscription.

Frederic leads a bourgeois life; he is a partner in a small Paris office and is happily married to Helene, a teacher expecting her second child. In the afternoons, Frederic daydreams about other women, but has no intention of taking any action. One day, Chloe, who had been a mistress of an old friend, begins dropping by his office. They meet as friends, irregularly in the afternoons, till eventually Chloe decides to seduce Frederic, causing him a moral dilemma.

Instead of a scandalous affair, this quiet drama examines the subtle friction between a man's polite domesticity and his wandering, midday fantasies. It captures the peculiar ache of a life that remains perfectly stable even as its internal compass begins to spin.