Lovers

Very moody greatly acted

Star-crossed lovers whichever pairing you look at here

Full of sadness Sehnsucht saudade tristesse depending on your particular linguistic poison. It has a bittersweet quality to it all

The fact that it takes place in 3 different locales enhances the tale.

Highly recommended.

Otherwise very poor script for a very old Nicole Garcia , as if she had nothing to say anymore ... Time to stop. Should I keep going on , so sorry for the actors.

Nicole Garcia's razor-sharp, fatalistic film noir opens with Lisa (Stacy Martin) and Simon (Pierre Niney) in a dingy studio rendered more claustrophobic by the 2.35:1 widescreen. She is so happy and alive then. Soon she seems to inherit the Earth, basking in luxury amidst endless vistas of oceans and lakes, and is utterly dead inside.

So is everyone else. Within 10 minutes we have met all their family and friends, about to leave Paris and chase money. Dubai, Africa, Toronto; it is a fallen, disconnected world. In a trademark Garcia deus ex machina plot turn Simon, now a broken man, finds Lisa in India, where her husband Leo (Benoit Magimel) plies his multinational shenanigans. Simon follows them back to snowy Geneva. Someone is surely destined to die.

Martin is terrific in a restrained role, but is even more girlish here than in her similar moth-to-the-flame gig _Treat Me Like Fire_. For her sake you hope she gets more mature roles.

There is hardly any flame in _Lovers_ though. Simon is a shifty small-time dealer turned small-time chef; you don't see fire even when he cooks.

Washed-out colors reign. Leo's house decorations are all black-and-white especially the trophy wife: outfit, pale face, and all. Every time the color red appears -- a blanket, a siren's flaming hair -- death inevitably follows. If Edouard Manet had made a movie it would have looked like this. He would also have approved of the snow, the provocative nudity.

The cinematography is first-rate without being self-indulgent, even if there are few of Garcia's beloved tracking shots. The back-lit chilly natural light accentuates the immersive heartlessness, although no one means to be evil -- not even Leo. He tries to please Lisa but is too out-of-touch.

He thinks money can change human nature. After the deaths and the most understated of catharsis, there is finally freedom, a new life. It is almost a miracle, a religious experience.

Rather weak, predictable and full of implausabilities, barely worthy of a TV movie.

Good actors but not very fit this time. None of them give the impression of being in love. The film takes place in dream places (Mauritius and Geneva, for example) but not seductively filmed.

Not interesting.

Which goes to show there's simply no accounting for taste, as I read the generally negative reviews beforehand. I'm not sure if it's my lack of cynicism or romantic streak, but I found it entirely explicable and also gorgeous to look at and twisty and turn-y enough to keep me on the edge of my seat. Perhaps I'm an outlier here but ...