Out Director Olivier Peyon Takes Fresh Look at Lost Love in VOD Release 'Lie With Me'

Olivier Peyon's poignant and surprising film "Lie with Me," adapted from the Philippe Besson novel, is part coming-of-age story, part gay trauma, and part "writer dives into his own past" drama. If it sounds like a rote recipe, don't worry; Peyon (who also co-wrote the screenplay) maintains a careful balance, navigating between time periods, moods, and a few hard plot twists, delivering a well-wrought heartbreaker.

The film's plot follows famed writer Stéphane Belcourt (Guillaume de Tonquédec ), who returns to his home town of Cognac for the first time in three and a half decades. He's spent his career writing novels that look back on a summer of love with a classmate named Thomas (Julien De Saint Jean), a prototypical cool kid with a gang of followers and a gaggle of girlfriends... and also, a hidden side that yearns for the touch of another man.

Their secretive affair, never properly resolved, remains a source of pain for Stéphane, and when he meets a young man named Lucas during his trip back to Cognac, he finds his pain and confusion are mirrored; Lucas, it turns out, is Thomas' son, and he's lived his life wondering at his father's reserve and unhappiness. Once Stéphane and Lucas make the connection, they struggle with conflicting feelings, each wanting to know more – Lucas, about his father's early life, Stéphane wanting to learn what became of Thomas – but also wary about reopening old wounds. Things get more complicated – in ways comedic as well as dramatic – when it turns out that Lucas has secrets of his own, while Stéphane, facing insoluble writer's block, faces the prospect of having to deliver a speech for a major gathering.

Peyon – himself openly gay – chatted with EDGE about his film.

EDGE: I expected the movie would be a May December romance, but it isn't, which felt surprising and fresh. Was that part of what drew you to the novel?

Olivier Peyon: Philippe Besson is a famous novelist in France. He's a gay novelist. The biggest part of the novel is the romance between the two teenagers, and the encounter between the writer and the son of Thomas is not a romance at all. It's more like a pretext to remember the past. I loved the love story between the two teenagers, but this encounter [between the adult Stéphane and Thomas' son Lucas] was original. I was touched by the son, who suffered so much from the silence of his father. Each of them has pieces of the puzzle, and finally when they meet each other, they understand why they suffered so much.

EDGE: This is a film about lost love – a couple of different kinds of lost love, really. But it's also a very funny movie. Did you have to write a lot of the humor into the film yourself, or was the humor in the novel?

Olivier Peyon: [Laughing] I really love Philippe Besson's writing [but] all his books are so sad and depressing. The humor is more from me. I like the mix from these two different feelings.

EDGE: Most people can probably identify with the theme of a lost love, but for LGBTQ+ people it's especially meaningful. Often, we aren't allowed to have a first love that runs its natural course, the way straight teenagers are, and we might carry those unresolved feelings with us the rest of our lives.

Olivier Peyon: I totally agree with you that first love for gay people is more difficult. But in the end, it is the same [for straight people, too]. I discovered with all the screenings we did in France. There were lots of straight people who came to see the movie [and] were really touched by the gay love story. They discovered that the gay story is not so different from the straight love story, and I discovered that a lot of straight people also have this kind of experience. Of course, it's more easy [for them], but not so much; I mean, you know, they're all traumatized [too] by their first love story.

The subject of the movie and the novel is the choices in your life. It's about Thomas, who doesn't have the courage to come out. Of course, there is a specificity about the first gay love story [in the lives of these characters], but it's a more universal story than that.

EDGE: You don't have to answer this if it's too personal, but did you have a lost love from your youth that you remembered and that gave you inspiration for this film?

Olivier Peyon: I'm going to answer that. In fact, no, it was not about my first love. It was more about why isn't sufficient to [pretend to be straight]. I could have been a Thomas; I have two kids, but now I have a gay life. My coming out was very late in my life. It felt really intimate to tell this story. I succeeded [where Thomas failed]... it was not about the loss of my first love, because I am more Thomas [than Stéphane], and that's why I was so touched by [Lucas], the character of the son, because I have two sons. Perhaps if I was always ashamed of myself [like Thomas is], I would be traumatized. But finally, no, everything is okay – so, I think I made this movie for them.