The final chapter in Truffaut's Antoine Doinel cycle, Love On The Run is a cleverly devised summing-up of the amorous history of Truffaut’s long standing hero, played throughout by Jean-Pierre Léaud who the director introduced to the world 20 years previously as a 13 year old in Les Quatre Cent Coups.
The film is a loose affair in which probably will mean a good deal to those who haven’t the earlier instalments as there are many quotations from them which Truffaut uses to review Antoine’s feckless love life. Many of the original players including Nouvelle Vague regular Marie-France Pisier and Claude Jade are reassembled for this chapter and its fascinating to see how they have aged from their earlier appearances, the continuity of players endowing the film with a quasi- documentary feel that is entirely appropriate given Antoine’s near-reality in our consciousness. And in a nice touch that further bends the reality status of what we see, Truffaut even has Antoine appropriating his own experiences in the autobiographical novel that he is writing
Truffaut brings everything to a relatively happy closure but the tone is slightly melancholy and somehow we doubt whether Antoine's commitment to fidelity will survive. Nevertheless as a portrayal of a young man’s romantic history Love On The Run is a charming if slight film. Fortunately for us, Antoine Doinel will never grow old.