L'amour ouf

Gilles Lellouche's near 3-hour epic crime romance adventure is quite ambitious. For Lelouche to explore some interesting themes about crime, angsty, love, and the extremely energetic tone, it's an accomplishment of French cinema in this current times.

Lellouche does offer some great aspects about it's concept. The strong performances, beautiful colorful production, tone, and camerawork really helps establish the environment, tone and setting. Unfortunately, what prevents it from being an epic masterpiece is the writing and structure. Oftentimes, Lellouche applies too much into the narrative. It's clear what the story is wanting to express and there are some pretty good aspects about it. But with a narrative that feels unnecessary stretched out and having characters that don't feel too emotionally connectable doesn't do much service to what Lellouche would have wanted.

I do appreciate some of the ambitious take Lellouche does. The fact he was able to capture the time period perfectly and have a good pacing does show the passion. But it's style over substance moments ends up over staying it's welcome. Realistically, this movie didn't have to be near 3-hours.

The movie is about 3 hours long with some mediocre acting here and there (im talking about Malaury and Malik here, he at least has some interesting and entertaining scenes and actually resembles the acting done by his older self) but besides that the cinematography, done by Laurent Tangy, the music selection the story, the shocking scenes, the charm and warmth of certain scenes, the atmosphere, honestly make this movie a special and unique experience, if you have a significant other go watch it together, it ups the experience a whole lot more. The fact that i saw this movie with my girlfriend really increased the experience.

"L'amour ouf" (Breaking Hearts) is already a cult film for French teenagers which could be compared to "La Boum" (The Party - 1980- with Sophie Marceau).

The gangster part and the story of revenge in the background can't mislead us: it's first and foremost a love story, a typical teenage film with all the ingredients it usually features : romance, heartbreaks and struggle for love.

Despite being a cultural phenomenon here in France from which tik tok and social networks have cashed in, "Breaking Hearts" remains an average film done with heavy manners, heavy effects and classic tools (insisting 90's music, close-up, and very written an ungenuine dialogs).

For sure, the director has put a lot of himself in it and by this I mean genuine memories of his teenagehood: music, cinema references, memories of intimate scenes, nostalgic booth's souvenirs and first kiss experiences. However, it does not withstand an adult's critic especially when it comes to analyse the verisimilitude of its plot and the good (or bad) taste of its filming. Beating Hearts does not stand out for its originality yet, a little bit for his style.

I don't want to lash out at Gilles Lellouch who is a fantastic actor and a decent director ("Le Grand Bain" Sink or Swim his previous film was gorgeous).

"Breaking Hearts" unlike Sink or Swim is way more personal, a lot more risky I would say but way less funny than his previous film. Breaking Hearts looks old fashioned because it's pompous. Don't get me wrong. It's entertaining but it never EVER approaches a cult or even a very good film as the director intended to, because it's way too pompous to be taken seriously. To me, the main problem is the intention the director had, not necessarily the outcome. Let me explain. You can clearly tell that the director wanted it to be something big, you can clearly tell he has put a lot of effects, a lot of money. Too much for the style, too less for the content.

The result is entertaining (despite being too long I have to say), but it lacks credibility at times, and the result is ackwardly disturbing, as if you were seeing a very old fashioned film done with heavy manners.

To me, and it's my main critic for this film, Gilles Lellouch is very "heavy-handed" especially when it comes to gangster scenes, bunch of friends' scenes and love scenes. Besides I am intimitally convinced he has litterally copied some scenes from La Haine (Hatred), Dirty Dancing or West Side Story. And the same thing happens when it comes to dialogs ( very...VERY written or inspired by other films) as if he wanted each scene to be cult. At the end, you may reckon it does not reach the standard of a cult movie, and clearly never ever approach a master-piece . You might even wonder if it was really worth 32 billion budget.

I think the director relies too much on the weight of his stars, the weights of his words and too less on the power of the story or the input of supporting roles. Apart from Alain Chabat and his touching role as a widow father, the supporting roles are not to be remembered (and it has nothing to do with their performance or quality as actors because for instance Vincent Lacoste is brilliant as the "vilain" from beginning to end but his character is not interesting). The supporting roles are most of the time irrelevant to the story, and quite trivial.

In addition to this overdose of music, there is what I would call an americanization of the 80's-90's which seem cool but growing up in a small town in France in the 90's was not like the film pictures (bunch of black friends...really ?, pupils taking an americanized bus to go to school and wait on car's roofs). I am afraid to say that I don't believe it. It's fake. The family relationships are manichean, boys are cool and girls are naïve the adventure scenes are very gendered (the girls hold their nose when they dive whereas the boys make a backflip), and basically everything from beginning to end is very classic (the bad kid climbs up on old cars and beats up adults despite being weak and skinny).

The discovery of the rising stars Mallory Wanecque and Malik Frikah could make you forget all this cliché mania for a while. In fact, the first act of the film is quite brilliant. This incandescent love is very well pictured in a classic style though. You expect a beautiful ending to it (you can't wait to see Adèle Exarchopoulos and François Civil from whom you expect to bring something new, more modern, after 12 years of gap in the plot).

The problem is that it is stricly the contrary that happens. François Civil and Adèle Exachopoulos bring NOTHING new, their performances are almost held back... with less intensity than their younger counterparts.

The story lacks sense in the second part of the film. Themegalomania of the director is over represented to emphasize the love, the fate and the beauty of the main characters. Gilles Lellouch makes long (too long) scenes focusing on their faces.

Clichés, solid cinema references, and a great soundtrack, this is what this film is made of.

At the end, you may end up fed up with all these cichés as if Gilles Lellouch intented to give his audience what it was expecting.

All in all it looks like the perfect recipe for teenagers, a cheesy gift offered to them with no limit over the budget and two fantastic picks (that's for sure): (way better than the famous stars of this film !): Mallory Wanecque and Malik Frikah. Hats off for their two performances.

Original scenario. Lellouch did really great with this movie, one of the best scenario and movie of the year. Great Nostalgie starting from the opening font style. Picture, music, image all other the movie is a great memory of the 80s and 90s.

The "kids" are playing very well, looking forward new movies, they are to become great actors. I was a bit afraid of Exarchopoulos as usually I don't really like her but she does pretty well on her scenes which are pretty made for her. Chabat is obviously great as the GOAT he is, i remind me of Didier at the start for thise who know, you'll know. Civil is perfect in the role, this dark style fits him very well.

The first part, with the kids, is pretty good. The film should have ended there for the sake of audience. And Gilles Lellouche would have directed one of the best French teenage romances of the decade.

The rest of the movie, the second act, is horrible. The actors François Civil and Adèle Exarchopoulos lack chemistry together, their acting in this movie are bland and without compromise. I suspect both actors should start rethinking their own careers in French cinema once the two newcomers Mallory Wanecque and Malik Frikah outshine them and steal the show in this confusing mediocre movie.

At first it seems the movie strikes as a modern take of The Count of Monte Cristo .. I mean the old story of the wronged young rebel guy who returns for revenge and the search for his loved one. However it falls out with exaggerated and caricatured toxic masculinity. A stylized and tacky male gaze. And in the half and end of second act the plot ends up losing credibility.

The problem, beyond the burden of everything, is the strange determination that the film shows in claiming originality in each shot it offers without achieving it even once. Every time it comes to deciding,it always opt for the most formal, the most obvious. What we have already seen. And so, it repeats, for three hours of the closest thing to a French blockbuster, with a good marketing and PR behind it, it is that the French audiences are going to see this year.