"The Loves of a Blonde" - Film Review

There are some films that feel true to life. They’re filled with so many nicely observed moments that there’s an authenticity to them. They feel real. The Loves of a Blonde is obviously staged because it’s a movie, but, in the hands of director Milos Forman, there are so many of these joyous small scenes that sometimes it’s easy to forget and slip into its world.

Andula (Hana Brejchová) has gotten engaged to a man that she hasn’t seen for a month. She says she loves him but she’s upset that he hasn’t gotten back to her in so long. 

In the meantime, she goes to a party hosted for reserve troop brought in to undo the gender imbalance in the small town (A ratio of 16 women to 1 men - There's some social satire here about communism in Czechoslovakia). She and her friends notice that three soldiers keep looking over at them and they’re certain they want to dance with them. The girls are embarrassed, but also a little flattered. The soldiers, who are much older than these young girls, argue as to whether the girls would be cool with them going over to ask them to dance.

In the film's first incredibly charming and funny moment, the men send over a bottle of Champaign to the girls and the waiter accidentally sends it to the wrong table. Due to the crosscutting, the meaning of the whole situation is made further funny; the girls are relieved while the men are flustered and angry.

Eventually the soldiers do dance with them. It’s a slightly awkward but mostly fun night. After one of the soldiers pressures them to drink wine and then to go somewhere else with them, they head off to the bathroom to discuss what they should do. Andula isn’t interested though. 

She’s about to leave, but then she runs into the piano player from the band at the party. She’s been occasionally eying him all night. He convinces her to come back to his room, but she keeps saying that she’s going to leave soon. He jokes around and teaches her self-defense, and before you know it she’s won over. They sleep together, and she sneaks out in the morning. In another one of those perfect little details, at the same time she’s doing her walk of shame, she runs into one of the women from the table who falsely received the Champaign doing the exact same thing.    

She returns to her normal life. She works in the factory and lives in her dormitory. The piano player, Milda (Vladimír Pucholt), is still on her mind though. When the boy she’s technically engaged to suddenly shows up, he berates her for not wearing the ring he gave her. He makes her go back to her dorm to get the ring. When she won’t come back down, he storms in and yells at her. But her roommates defend her, and she finally tells him off. 

Inspired by this, she decides she’ll hitchhike up to see Milda. However, she never tells him that she’s coming, and it leads to a series of awkward encounters with his parents. She shows up at his apartment, but he’s at a gig. She leaves but asks them to hold onto her suitcase. The parents contemplate and argue why Milda would have a girl come over like this; the mother is particularly frustrated. Andula returns because the frontdoor is locked and she needs help leaving, but the mother has her stay since she wants to get a look at the potential beau of her son. The mother questions the lack of thoughtfulness to her decision making (where was she planning to spend the night in Prague?).   

They tell her that she can spend the night. Everyone goes to sleep, and Milda (who has been out having dinner with another girl) returns home in the middle of the night. His father hears him come in and asks him who the girl is. He claims that he doesn’t recognize her and didn’t invite her. Andula wakes up and he gets a better look at her and makes the connection as to who she is. They talk, the spark between them seems rekindled (or Milda at least feigns that it is). 

But soon after, the mother will not tolerate them sleeping together and drags him into the parents’ bed. This leads to one of the funniest and most realistic scenes, where the three individuals find it near impossible to get comfortable with the lack of space they now have in the bed. It also doesn’t help that they’re bickering the whole time (mainly about Andula’s sudden arrival). She sneaks a listen into this and it makes her cry.  She's been disillusioned by the whole incident and heads home.

Not much happens, but it all has a sincerity to it. We’ve all had those days where these odd but meaningful series of events have occurred. We’ve all juggled romantic commitments. The greatest aspect about it is how it undercuts these moments to make them all the more real. Andula showing up at Milda’s doorstep is that grand romantic gesture everyone has thought of making and seen in the movies, and she shows up and nothing goes as planned. More importantly the guy she thought she was in love with and her romantic longing turn out to both be false. A funny, poignant, breezy film.

Grade: A