How Much Do You Love Me?

I love French cinema, but I was rather disappointed by this movie. The most positive thing about this movie is beautiful and erotic Bellucci taking her clothes off but the plot is so poor I can't understand Gerard Depardieu playing such a one-dimensional person.

The dialogs are sometimes ridiculous, maybe unintentionally because of the bad German synchronization I watched. It is not enough to play classical opera music instead of creating a convincing dramaturgy and script.

But to mention some positive aspects as well, there are plenty of breathtaking stills like Bellucci sitting in the window of the bar in Pigalle or "Francois" and "Daniela" at the beach, so the movie offers, as French cinema often does, excellent aesthetic quality. Accepting that this is cinema showing totally artificial characters, you might have a good time watching this movie.

How Much Do You Love Me? is a romantic sex comedy featuring the irresistible Italian actress Monica Bellucci as the leading actress, with veteran actor Gerard Depardieu and Bernard Campan as the 2 leading guys in the drama, which involves weak heart, sex, lottery, blackmail and tonnes of laughter.

Francois (Campan) is a civil servant living in a bachelorhood. He strike lottery and he set his eyes on Daniela (Bellucci), a beautiful prostitute. He makes an offer of paying her 100,000 euros per month to stay with him until he used up his cash award of 4 million euros. She moves in with him and everything begins from a role play of husband and wife. As they goes on, he develop feelings for her. However, Charly (Depardieu), a mafia boss, who was the lover of Daniela, steps in. He opens up a proposal for Francois: to buy the freedom of Daniela from Charly at 4 million euros.

Director Bertrand Blier has spiced up the film with tonnes of laughter, with a touch of slapstick. While some of the scenes might seems to be exaggerating, it is actually not. At a certain level, he has brought up the loneliness of a middle age bachelor faced, from mentally to physically.

Monica Bellucci is the focus of How Much Do You Love Me. Once again, she takes up the sexually challenging role of a prostitute after Malena and Irreversible. She swings in between Campan and Depardieu, where the former is a civil servant paying for the service, and the latter her lover. Swining in between the 2 men spices up the later part of the film, where it is unmissable.

Depardieu, however, seems to be pulling the whole film down, where the role of Charly the mafia boss seems to be too dull and boring. Though he might be trying hard to play the role of mafia boss, more effort can be put in. Campan, on the other hand, has room for improvement, though it can be seen that effort has been put in.

Do not expect any raunchy sex scene in How Much. Instead, do expect the witty and humorous sex jokes and argument in a scene where Bellucci, Campan and Farida Rahouadj (who plays Francois's neighbor) gather outside the house for a dispute.

This movies worths 6/10. And it is a good movie to spice up a boring weekend night.

Yes, I confess that my approach to this movie was not so enthusiastic, Mrs. Bellucci is not my favorite actress. But the director (Blier) and Gerard Depardieu are a warranty, in my opinion. The movie is a "divertissment" played around a man, who try to buy the love of a magnificent whore(Bellucci), stating he win the price at the lottery,and so offering her a 100 thousand euros per month salary. So, could this indecent proposal buy her love? and what's about the pimp(Depardieu)? The plot has the capacity to stay light, the music helps a lot to accept the events as a play, the life is surprisingly wonderful, love is the mystery. And Monica Bellucci is a full joy, a daydream for all the middle aged, insignificant men searching for a reason to dream.

"How Much Do You Love Me?" revolves around Monica Bellucci's character Daniela and the many different female roles she changes into and out of like so many pieces of clothing. She is definitely a whore and a seductress, but she may or may not also be a girlfriend, a wife, a mistress, an accomplice, and a scam artist. She is at times domineering but at others submissive and weak; at times jealously possessive but at others open and free; at times quiet and pensive but at others loud and raucous. It takes a while for all these different sides of Daniela to appear, but by the end of the film she is changing between them seemingly in the blink of an eye.

Few characters in the movie can resist falling for one or more sides of Daniela, and the audience too will fall in love with the performance Monica Bellucci gives in the role. It certainly helps that Monica has the beauty and the body to pull of the role, and she is not shy about sharing her voluptuous charms with the camera. In one scene she even instructs us on how she is able to seduce her target, and it is clear that Monica Bellucci knows how to use her considerable female attributes.

The other strong performance in "How Much Do You Love Me?" comes from legendary French actor Gerard Depardieu. Depardieu's character does not appear until the second half of the film, well after all the other main characters have been introduced, but Depardieu instantly captures the attention of the audience. He has played many different characters in his career, and in "How Much Do You Love Me?" he looks like he was born to play the role of an amoral gangster.

The main problem I had with "How Much Do You Love Me?" is that the action starts off slowly, and what is billed as a comedy feels like a depressive drama during the first third of the film. As it turns out it takes a while for director and writer Bertrand Blier to set the stage, and the action picks up considerably in the second two thirds of the film. "How Much Do You Love Me?" never turns into a slapstick farce; instead, it is ultimately a sophisticated adult comedy about the different roles women can assume. While being entertaining it also raises some interesting questions about just what the differences and boundaries are between those roles.

In Paris, after winning the lottery, the clerk François (Bernard Campan) goes to a bar in Pigalle and offers one hundred thousand Euros per month to the prostitute Daniela (Monica Bellucci) to live with him until the end of his money. François is a lonely man, with heart problems and Daniela stays with him for eight days. Then, she decides to come back to her man, the mobster Charly (Gérard Depardieu), but she misses François and returns to his place. But once a whore, always a whore.

The promising "Combien Tu m'Aimes?" is a great deception: having Monica Bellucci, Gérard Depardieu and Bernard Campan in the cast, and directed by Bertrand Blier, this "dramatic romantic comedy" has a weird development and a confused and disappointing open conclusion. I honestly did not understand the last quarter of this movie, which is simply awful. The screenplay wastes a good and original idea, and the character of Gérard Depardieu is absolutely dull and ridiculous. The beauty of Monica Bellucci, even with forty-one years, is the best this mislead movie can offer. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Por Amor ou Por Dinheiro?" ("For Love or For Money?")