Once again, a French director has portrayed the difficulties of being a bisexual as well as trying to be the lover of a bisexual. In La Confusion des genres (Confusion of Genders), director Ilan Duran Cohen’s script ups the ante on the 1998 movie The School of Flesh (L’ecole de la chair) by providing a portrait of three bisexual males trapped in an existentialist rejection of self-stereotypes and two women who suffer as a result. There are plenty of sex scenes, proving that all three bisexual men are very passionate lovers; indeed, in the opening scene the many partners of fortysomething Alain Bauman (played by Pascal Greggory) morph before us on the screen. Alain is a junior partner in a law firm run by Laurence (played by Nathalie Richard). Both are experiencing midlife crises, in part because they have not pleased their heterosexual parents by settling down into marriage. They sleep together a lot, but Alain also enjoys the company of men, particularly Christophe (played by Cyrille Thouvenin), perhaps the only gay man in the story. Christophe is the late teen brother of Marlene (played by Marie Saint-Dizier), whom Alain ditches early in the film as he decides to suggest marriage with Laurence. Wisely, Laurence demurs, even after she learns that she is carrying his child; after all, Christophe at one point starts to live happily with Alain. Meanwhile, one of Alain’s clients, Marc (played by Vincent Fernandez), is in jail for murder. Marc immediately detects that Alain is gay and tells him that he can always tell when men want him to fuck them. But Marc is desperately in love with hair stylist Babette (played Julie Gayet) and begs Alain to bring her to visit at the prison. When Alain does so after much urging, Marc starts to pull off her clothes, so she runs off, and he is forbidden to see her again. Marc’s cellmate Etienne (played by Alain Bashung), who inferentially has been his passive sex partner in prison, receives an instruction from Marc just before his release, having served his time. The order, an obvious clue to their relationship, is to contact Babette in order to tell her how much he loves her. After Etienne contacts her, she is frightened and moves in with Alain (and Christophe) for protection, perhaps realizing that the confused lawyer is amorously attracted to her. Upset, Christophe is ready to leave, considering three to be a crowd in a small apartment, but Alain persuades him to stay. On learning that Babette is no longer interested in him, Marc next insists that Etienne must kill Babette, but Etienne instead falls in love with her. After much hesitation, including a bizarre wedding ceremony, Alain and pregnant Laurence get married, and later she gives birth. Christophe, however, is more delighted with the baby than either the husband or wife. In the final scene, a male nurse comes into the room and removes the baby without explanation; when Alain goes out of the room, presumably to find out why, the nurse says that he is going to give the baby a bath. But of course Alain’s real reason for talking to the nurse, filmviewers will conclude, is to find out his name and telephone number to start up another affair. The film, with the tagline “Did you ever have to make up your mind?,” then ends with haunting lyrics of a delightful song. Although Confusion of Genders is supposed to be a comedy, the humor sails past American audiences because the actors do not grimace or otherwise provide a clue that filmviewers are to laugh. Serious expressions on their faces, combined with subtitles that barely keep up with the dialog, turn the plot into a boy-chases-boy-chases-girl story for Americans who live in a less subtle culture, one that knows almost nothing about Albert Camus’s existentialist philosophy, the contradictions of which are repeatedly exposed in the film. In France, however, the film could well serve as the pilot for an amusing sitcom, with or without a laugh track. MH