Frequently hailed as “the second coming of the Nouvelle Vague,” the extremely talented Christophe Honoré shows the influence of Jean-Luc Godard’s minimalist musical, A Woman Is a Woman (1961), and Jacques Demy’s all-sung The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), in this tune-filled movie set in present-day Paris about a “ménage à trois” and fluid sense of sexuality. Ismaël and his live-in girlfriend, Julie, open their relationship to include Ismaël’s coworker Alice. When the trio are at a club one night, Julie dies suddenly. Ismaël is crippled with grief, which is assuaged somewhat by his close ties with Julie’s family, especially her older sister, Jeanne. Alice and Ismaël remain friends and begin new relationships: Alice with a Breton named Gwendal, Ismaël with Gwendal’s younger brother, Erwann. When words won’t suffice for the characters’ surfeit of emotion, they simply break out into song. The fourteen tracks written by Alex Beaupain plumb the heights of ecstasy and the depths of melancholy and are delivered in an exceptionally casual way, as if singing were the most natural mode of communication among Honoré’s beautiful, heartbroken characters. Love Songs, a genuine, touching homage, updates the musical form for the 21st century.