He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

I didn't know what to expect when I saw this. I'm an American living in France and my girlfriend is French and rents all the French movies for me. This is one of those mixed genre movies that actually works! Audrey Tautou is so charming and capable as an actress that she makes you root for her even when you know she's playing someone completely crazy. She's already the biggest, most successful actress here in France and she's going to get even bigger. She's got what it takes to play different characters and she shows that in this movie.

The director brilliantly pieces together the two halves of this movie and by the end, it is believable. We almost wanted to watch it again so we can catch the tricks but we didn't have time.

Anyway this is a great French treat and for those of you who liked Tautou in "Amelie" and "A Very Long Engagement" you're going to like her in this one too.

This is an interesting story of obsessive love. We first explore the story from her point of view, then his. Given the main plot idea of obsessive love, it invites a comparison to "Fatal Attraction". This is a much better film. The plot is more interesting, with solid acting. There are a lot of inferences as to what happened in the film. We aren't spoon-fed the entire plot.

I found it to be quite enjoyable.

This "thriller lite" tells of innocence and victimization, and relies as much on its structural twists as on Audrey Tautou's saucer eyes and Samuel Le Bihan's hunkiness. You might even call it a black comedy, with lots of freshness and style. The best way to view this is to go in cold, relax, and let it grab you by the arm and gently drag you in.

That said, it is not really a romance, although people who like romances will find enough roses and hand-drawn artwork here to please. If you are one of those who generally refuses to see movies with "love" in the title, consider that "love" isn't in the original French title, so rest assured you can watch this without reservation.

Audrey Tautou is in my opinion the greatest rising star of the French cinema. Coming from a tradition that does not lack great actors, beautiful divas, living legends, and huge comedians, Audrey seems to bring together talent and beauty, huge interior and exterior beauty. Some compared her with the other Audrey - Hepburn, but in my opinion the French star talent exceeds by light-years the one of the American.

'A la folie...' is an interesting film by itself. An apparent tragic love story is being told from one of the partners angle in the first half of the movie - just to be re-told from the other partner perspective in the second part. The second half and the end hide a twist. Both script and film are cleverly written though made by a script-writer and director (Laetitia Colombani) only at her second film. I am expecting good things from her in the future.

Worth seeing - 8/10 on my personal scale.

Be careful about reading these reviews because almost anything can be a spoiler. I'll just say that the DVD cover, the movie posters, marketing and even the movie title are deceptively breezy. No, this ain't Amelie. Rather, this movie delves pretty deep into the twisted workings of the human mind. It's very cleverly done in a non-linear fashion (like Citizen Kane, Rashomon, or my favourite Gilligan's Island episodes where we see the same thing from different points of view).

The acting is superb, and the direction is right on par. The only gripe I have with this film is that due to its stealthy presentation it sometimes suffers from an identity crisis. I believe this could have been remedied with a more dynamic musical score (that is, it would have been more powerful if the music reflected the changes in the film's "personality"). There may have been other minor flaws which prevent me from giving this film a higher rating, but overall it was a worthwhile experience.