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He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very well done romance / thriller
Review: "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not" is a clever French film that begins as a romance and ends up as a thriller. I personally like this kind of story, in which nothing you see at the beginning is what it seems. [The most famous example, perhaps, is Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo"] While this movie might prove too deceptive and cynical [or even a bit cruel] for some viewers, I think it wll prove rewarding for those who like films that 'think outside the box'.

The movie begins much like any standard romance. Angelique [Audrey Tautou], a promising young artist, is madly in love with Loic [Samuel Le Bihan], a successful cardiologist. She sends some flowers and a painting she did to his office to show her affections. She is house sitting for a family who has gone away for a year. Her life seems almost perfect until it dawns on her that the doctor doesn't keep the promises he makes to her - he doesn't show up for dates, he refuses to leave his wife, etc. Slowly, she sinks into a depression. She later plots her revenge against her 'unfaithful' man. But what is really going on between these two? To say more would be to ruin the story.

Tautou is the French actress who charmed audiences around the world a while back as "Amelie". Here, she proves she is more than a big smile, wide eyes and an odd hairdo; in fact, she looks completely different. She is a most accomplished actress. Samuel Le Bihan is first rate as the object of her affection.

The movie is in French with English subtitles. These do not bother me in the least, but I am well aware that some people refuse to watch a movie in a foreign language. I say that that's their loss.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great head fake and wonderful surprise of a film
Review: "He Loves Me...He Loves Me Not" is a wonderful piece of misdirection by director Laetitia Colombani. It starts all saccharine sweet with flowers, perky songs of Spring and love, and a smitten Audrey Tautou.

It's all a great head fake. As the film turns slowly, inexhorably darker and more malevolent, you're faced with the reality that your sweet little Amelie maybe isn't what she appears to be in this outing. It's a great against-the-tide career choice by Tautou and the masterstroke of the trap Ms. Colombani's sets for her audience.

Where Colombani's film elevates itself vs. others of this genre is in its unique, impressively designed story construction. Others on these pages have alluded to the technique. I'm not going to repeat it here. It came as a surprise to me during my viewing, and it was like a special treat - my mouth dropped open suddenly as Colombani delivered her unexpected wallop. Everyone deserves that pleasure. I suggest you try to avoid extensive reading about this one before you take it in. Your lack of preparation will be well-rewarded.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: "A la folie...pas du tout!"
Review: "Madly...not at all," the original French title of Colombani's opus, is much more apt, for therein lies the clue to this tale with a tantalizing twist. The winsome Angelique first appears peeking out from a profusion of hundreds of vivid flowers, a kaleidoscopic, psychedelic, Walt Disney burst of glorious technicolor redolent of Easter and Alice in Wonderland. With Bambi eyes aglitter, the gamine persuades the florist to deliver a single flower to her beloved, a married doctor about to leave his wife for her. Outside the shop, the adventure begins as the deliveryman on his moped takes off for the doctor's office while Angelique on her svelte bicycle whirls off in the opposite direction. We follow her through charming Bordeaux as she bubbles on ecstatically about her Loic, obsessively draws and paints his portrait over and over, receives a prestigious art scholarship, meets with her lover at a reception, tries on a wedding dress, plans a romantic trip, all the while pursued by an obsessive medical student who idolizes her despite her love for the doctor. As the plot unwinds, Angelique finally falls into a coma signalled by a whirlwind of scenes from her immediate past, culminating in a return to the beginning of the film. Once again, she persuades the florist to have the rose delivered. Outside the florist shop, she once more mounts her bicycle while the deliveryman mounts his moped. But this time, we follow the deliveryman to Loic's office. From then on, every scene is juxtaposed to the corresponding scene in the first half of the film as seen within the doctor's frame of reference. Not a detail is missed as we are cunningly led behind the mirror to relive the past events from a totally different perspective, so familiar yet so different. And what a shocker it is. If you enjoy a clever, cynical and cruel plot, lucent cinematography and flawless acting, this is for you. Brava, Laetitia Colombani, for a suspenseful tour de force.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great head fake and wonderful surprise of a film
Review: "He Loves Me...He Loves Me Not" is a wonderful piece of misdirection by director Laetitia Colombani. It starts all saccharine sweet with flowers, perky songs of Spring and love, and a smitten Audrey Tautou.

It's all a great head fake. As the film turns slowly, inexhorably darker and more malevolent, you're faced with the reality that your sweet little Amelie maybe isn't what she appears to be in this outing. It's a great against-the-tide career choice by Tautou and the masterstroke of the trap Ms. Colombani's sets for her audience.

Where Colombani's film elevates itself vs. others of this genre is in its unique, impressively designed story construction. Others on these pages have alluded to the technique. I'm not going to repeat it here. It came as a surprise to me during my viewing, and it was like a special treat - my mouth dropped open suddenly as Colombani delivered her unexpected wallop. Everyone deserves that pleasure. I suggest you try to avoid extensive reading about this one before you take it in. Your lack of preparation will be well-rewarded.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Looks a lot like the old "Fatal Attraction""
Review: A woman who make believe in a life and a love that does not exist, pesters a doctor, try to destroy his life, his wife,his career, his unborn child, a totally psychotic woman. Just help me open my eyes to the number of crazy peoples that may be around the corner and usually they look nice and normal, but you never know what go in their heads...

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: how can you not love Audrey Tautou
Review: Amelie is my favorite Tautou movie..this one is my second..this one has her and Samuel LeBihan(Brotherhood Of The Wolf, who kicked so much behind in that movie) is now kissing and romanticly sweeping Tautou's character off her feet as the doctor...rich and colorful...a nicely done foreign movie with heart and sexyness..a gem

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Audrey in Her Best Role
Review: As cute as a button, Audrey Tatou plays the role in the movie well. She is obsessed with her married neighbor, whom she had an affair with. An aspiring artist watching over the house of a diplomat, Audrey's character goes through a mentally spiraling path that leads to events that get people killed, sued, and hospitalized. Her lover, a married doctor, should have left her alone. He knew what he was getting himself into by having an affair with a young, single girl. He let his guard down when he met this girl who would later be the death of him.
This was a good movie as it went from utopia to realism. The director explores the mind of a love obsessed woman who will do anything to get the man she loves, even it means hurting herself and those around her. Audrey Tatou proves to be a great actress in France and universally.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Light as bubbly, deadly as murder!!!!
Review: Audrey Tatou has a smile that could melt anyone's heart, and even when she plays an obsessed psychotic, you can't help but fall in love with her (even if her antics scare you to death). Tatou plays Anjelique, a French student who thinks she is in love with a married doctor, Loic (Samuel Le Bihan of "Brotherhood of the Wolf"), whose wife (Isabelle Carre) is pregnant. The first half of the story follows Angelique's attempts to get Loic to leave his wife and run away with her to Florence. When she is stood up, Anjelique begins to go a bit "nuts". Then, the perspective shifts, and we see the previous events through Loic's eyes, and the story seems quite different, as we see Angelique's "love" more strongly resembling a dangerous obsession.

An edge-of-the-seat thriler with touches of light comedy and numbing romance, "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not" is the perfect vehicle for Tatou. She has a wicked glint in her angelic eyes that usually read as something mischievous but, in a darker context, can be extremely unsettling.

The film begins as lightly as a bubbly French farce, but abruptly turns into a scary essay of madness and murder, with Tautou at its deadly center. Everything depends on whether Angelique is actually involved with Loic or is a prisoner of her own delusions. The second part of the film replays many of the events we've already seen, but from Loic's perspective, which is quite different from Angelique's. For him, there is no affair, nothing but a sometimes pesky little neighbor he barely knows, part of a life now puzzlingly falling apart.

Which is the truth? By the end, director Laetitia Colombani clearly reveals what's going on. But she also demonstrates how dreams can consume us and quickly take over our reality.

This is a surprisingly smart, engrossing and ambitious film by a first time director that displays superstar Tautou's gifts in an eerie new light and brims with intense suspense. Not as scary or funny as it could have been, but a truly enjoyable thriller that had me captivated from first frame to last. "He Loves Me, He Loves me Not," plays like a French "Fatal Attraction," with a few bonus twists and surprises. Tatou and Le Bihan have great on-screen chemistry, turning this charming romance into a mind-numbing psychological puzzler.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not at all what I expected---which is great!
Review: Audrey Tatou is Angelique, a French art student who is madly in love with Loic, a cardiologist. He is married to a lawyer, and they are about to have their first baby. All she thinks about is Loic. At the beginning he seemed so attentive. As time wears on, he seems to stand her up a lot more. Is he going to leave his wife for her, or is he promising something that will never happen? I can't say any more, because that would spoil the whole thing! See it for yourself!

This movie is told in two parts--first from her side, and then, from his. Nothing is the way it seems in this little thriller. One thing for certain: Audrey Tatou can not only play the sweet, innocent little one from Amelie. She has depth as an actress.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: 3 sides to every story
Review: Audrey Tatou: the pretty,the cute, gets a chance to play psycho in this fun little thriller.

The basic premise: Tatou plays a young woman in love with a married man, we watch her pine for him, ultimately leading to a horrible, dark depression - and a sick desire to protect him at all costs. Then, the film rewinds and we see everything from her lover's (or is he?) point of view. What is fresh and beautifully filmed turns a bit cliched and played out by the end.

I still recommend it, it's fun to watch that sweet Amelie smile hold something entirely new behind it, just don't expect anything new in the ending, unless, that is, you've never seen a thriller before.


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