To Each, Her Own (2018) Review: Immense Desire Between Jewish Tradition and Polyamory

In the forest of isolated identities, we often strive to define ourselves with a single word. Yet, because the human heart is not a taxidermied specimen, it sometimes steps beyond the lines drawn by convention into forbidden territory.

This work goes beyond merely addressing the confusion of sexual orientation; it captures, through a characteristically French lens—both lighthearted and sharp—how an individual honestly faces their desires and finds solidarity in the face of a massive tidal wave called “family.”

🌿 Moments When This Film Resonates Deeply

• For those who have stayed up all night in bewilderment because an old sentence that once defined you suddenly felt foreign.
• For those in their thirties for whom the coat of parental expectation has become so heavy it leaves you breathless.
• If you have ever questioned the world’s promise that the form of love must always be “two.”
• Ultimately, you must see why the film’s radical ending is not a mere escape, but an “expansion.”

🎞 Note Before Viewing

Rather than physical exposure or provocative imagery, this work is a drama that focuses on emotional tension and psychological conflict through dialogue. It is a relationship-centered narrative that humorously unpacks the intersection where religious taboos and sexual identity collide.

🎬 Film Information

• Title: To Each, Her Own (Original Title: Les Goûts et les Couleurs, 2018)
• Director: Myriam Aziza
• Screenplay: Myriam Aziza, Denys Bimbraut
• Country: France
• Genre: Comedy, Romance, Drama
• Running Time: 95 minutes
• Platform: Netflix
• Cast: Sarah Stern, Julia Piaton, Jean-Christophe Folly

📖 《To Each, Her Own》: The Moment Cracks Appear in the Fortress of Secrets [No Spoilers]

Simone is a bank employee who has lived in a stable cohabitation with her partner, Claire, for three years. On the surface, she is part of a perfect lesbian couple, but before her conservative Jewish family, she lives a double life, acting strictly “heterosexual.” Caught between her eldest brother, who is about to get married, and her younger gay brother, who has failed to have his identity recognized, Simone persists in this precarious dual existence—even going so far as to go on fake blind dates—to avoid disappointing her family.

Then one day, Simone meets Wali, a chef from Senegal. While communicating through the common language of cooking, a strange heterosexual attraction toward Wali begins to sprout within Simone, who had believed herself to be a lesbian her entire life. Torn between her desire to protect her relationship with Claire and her intense attraction to Wali, Simone’s daily life spirals into uncontrollable chaos.

Amidst the collision of Jewish tradition, queer identity, and the possibility of a new love, Simone faces the greatest choice of her life on the day of her brother’s wedding—the family’s biggest event.

🎨 Emotional Curves and Interpretation of 《To Each, Her Own》: Breaking the Boundaries of Identity

🏺 A Space Where Religious Taboo and Individual Dignity Collide

Simone’s household is a space dominated by Jewish tradition. Her mother’s dramatic emotional expressions and her father’s precarious health serve as emotional shackles for Simone. Here, identity is not merely a matter of personal taste but a matter of survival directly linked to the honor of the entire family.

Through scenes such as teaching how to eat Kosher food or the communion with Wali over a pork sausage, the director aesthetically explores how religious rules both suppress and liberate individual senses. Simone’s act of feeding pork to Wali is not a simple prank; it is interpreted as an unconscious resistance—an attempt to break down the walls of the “taboos” that bind her by transferring them to another.

🌊 A Psychological Whirlpool Between Denial and Acceptance

Even after a physical relationship with Wali, Simone refuses to define herself as “bisexual.” Her cry, “If I were bi, I would have known,” reveals her fear of the collapse of a self-definition she has meticulously built over a long time.

In the work, Claire symbolizes “familiar stability,” while Wali symbolizes “unfamiliar liberation.” The process of Simone confessing to Claire and being kicked out is an inevitable stage in the destruction of the false peace she maintained. Here, the core of the conflict lies not in “whom to choose,” but in “how to bear the weight of who one is.”

🔎 Reinterpretation of the Ending: The Unknown Territory Toward Which the Scooter Heads

The film’s conclusion completely destroys the grammar of traditional romance movies. Simone’s act of kissing both Claire and Wali at her brother’s wedding is a sort of declaration thrown at the closed community of the family. She breaks the framework of the “1:1 exclusive relationship” allowed by society and finds a radical point of agreement in polyamory (multi-partner love).

This ending signifies that Simone has decided not to be submerged in any one identity, but to affirm all directions her desire points toward. The scene where Claire and Wali accept this and climb onto the scooter together demonstrates an aesthetic of coexistence—not by removing each other’s differences (religion, race, sexual orientation), but by moving forward while embracing those differences. It is a process of mending the “cracks” of the “secrets” Simone once held with the solidarity of “sharing.”

Simone’s choice is an existential victory: a determination to exist solely as “herself” by rejecting all existing, named identities.

❓ Branches of Interpretation for 《To Each, Her Own》

Q1. Can Simone’s actions be justified as an exploration of identity rather than a betrayal of Claire? In the first half of the work, Simone’s deception clearly hurts Claire. From a critical perspective, this can be dismissed as mere cheating. However, rather than judging this with a moral yardstick, the film focuses on portraying the state of being “out of control” that a woman who has lived in a suppressed environment her whole life experiences when she first “discovers” her own senses. While acknowledging Claire’s pain, it shows that Simone’s wandering was a rite of passage leading her to her true self, seeking an understanding from the audience that goes beyond ethical judgment.

Q2. The polyamorous ending feels like a fantasy lacking in reality; what was the intention? While it is partly a result of the optimism characteristic of French comedy, structurally it symbolizes the “resolution of all conflicts.” The sight of marginalized social groups—Jewish, Muslim, and lesbian—harmonizing together is an alternative vision for the fragmented relationships of modern society. It should be viewed as an aesthetic device to maximize the sense of liberation immediately following an escape from the prison of identity, rather than a realistic possibility of settlement.

✨ 《To Each, Her Own》: The True Freedom Granted by Indescribable Love

The film asks us: how many of the numerous labels defining you truly represent your soul? Simone finally breathes after breaking through the double shells of family expectation and the stereotypes of sexual orientation. This cheeky film proves that love is not about possessing someone or confining them to a specific category, but about drifting along with the essence of that person as it flows.

The completion of love does not lie in defining the other, but begins in the wide embrace of fully accepting the other’s ever-changing self.

🗨 How to Face the Shifting Self: Embracing Identity that Flows Like a River

Identity is not a fixed terminal, but a river that flows throughout one’s life. If the definition of life you have built were to suddenly collapse tonight, would you deny that chaos, or would you entrust your body to the waves?

💜 Violet Screen’s Perspective: Women’s Narratives Worth Watching Together

• Summertime (La Belle Saison, 2015): Set in 1970s Paris, this film depicts the passionate love and social constraints between Delphine, a farmer’s daughter, and Carole, a feminist activist. It carries a slightly heavier historical weight than To Each, Her Own.
• Two of Us (Deux, 2019): A masterpiece that unpacks the love between two elderly women who have lived in hiding their whole lives, using thriller-like direction. It excellently portrays the tension that arises in the process of hiding a secret from family.