On a long vacation with his wife and family in the country, Frédéric finds himself forced to confront his hidden sexuality. When he meets Hugo, a gay neighbor in an adjacent cottage, the tension quickly begins to mount. As uninhibited about his sexuality during dinnertime conversation as he is with his body during his frequent midnight skinny dips, Hugo embodies the extreme contrast between life in the country and the thump-thump of the gay club where he goes on the prowl — an alternate reality where the birds don’t chirp.

As the flirtation between the two men intensifies, Hugo begins to taunt Frédéric by flaunting his tricks, knowing that Frédéric is jealous of his freedom. The confident Hugo rejects any notion of relationships, maintaining that by trying to capture and cage love, we kill it. But Frédéric, the committed romantic, argues the case for love and devotion, despite his own growing torment over his inability to satisfy his wife.

With beautiful, expressive composition and stunning, sweeping images of the Rhône region of France as its backdrop, The Man of My Life is presented like a curious and enchanting summer’s dream, weaving back and forth between scenes — some vivid, some fleeting, some coherent, some abstract — each bringing new insights as it raises new questions.