The Absence

“The River” ponders whether you can go home again, particularly if you’ve never been there. When Alfa (French rapper Stomy Bugsy) kills his drug-dealer boss in retaliation for a friend’s death, his brother cryptically suggests he leave Paris and “go toward the river.” Accompanied by sassy Senegalese cousin Marie (Auriele Coulibay), he embarks on a road trip back to his disdained African roots. Pic possesses a picaresque charm, plus feisty persona of Marie. But Bugsy is so unflaggingly morose, it’s hard to understand what Marie sees in him. Pic, yet to find a distrib in France, stands little chance in the U.S.

In this very light romantic comedy, two young men who are in search of the hypothetical perfect woman believe they have found her at a wedding reception. There, they see Lisa. Alexandre is the shy one, but he is also the one with the greatest yen to meet such a woman. He and Romain track Lisa down the next day and, though she is already dating someone, when Romain approaches her, she agrees to meet the two of them at a restaurant. They are dismayed when the part-Italian girl brings her mother with her as a chaperone. Other difficulties arise as well, and they resolve that this quest is less important than their friendship. Besides, Alexandre has by now discovered the charms of Romain's younger sister.