Rating: 
Summary: A witty and observant comedy.
Review: Loli, played by Victoria Abril, has given up a promising career as a dancer to become the wife of a womanising estate agent; and though she knows of one woman he has had an affair with and has forgiven him, she knows nothing about any of the others - not even her own baby-sitter! No. Her main complaint against him is not his promiscuity but that he takes her for granted and shows her little affection. So, when a butch lesbian, played by Josiane Balasko, appears on the scene, stopping at the house to ask for water for her van's radiator, she is a ripe fruit waiting to be picked. And this kind, mature, worldly-wise lesbian is an expert in the art of seduction.On an evening out together, the husband, played by Alain Chabat, already annoyed at the lesbian's intrusion into his home with his wife's encouragement, is driven into a blind fury when he discovers, on bending down to retrieve a cigarette from under the table, the lesbian's hand half way up his wife's thigh, and then sees them dancing together very intimately. From this follow many scenes of shouting and screaming, jealousy and rage. You feel for the husband's usurpation and his humiliation at being rejected for a lesbian - though you rejoice at his come-uppance - and you feel for the wife who deserves the affection she has been so long denied, and you feel for the lesbian with a loving heart who wants only to make the wife happy - though others may condemn her for destroying a relatively happy marriage. The husband hates her so much and is so desperate to get rid of her that he is willing to do anything, and in the end reluctantly accepts her condition for leaving; that he should go to bed with her and give her a baby. But despite all the passion and jealousy, this is a light comedy and not a heavy drama, and you have the feeling all along that everything will work out well in the end. And it does. The moral of the story, affirmed at the end, is that the only things that matter are love, tenderness and affection and if we get those the source's sexual gender is immaterial; we are all bisexual. This is a bright, witty and observant comedy, well-acted, particularly by Victoria Abril, and constantly entertaining.
Rating: 
Summary: Some kind of politically-correct morality play?
Review: OK, so the guy's a jerk, but in the end he accepts his wife's female lover as part of the family --- sounds like a new Disney movie to me! Actually, Josiane Balasko did a decent job directing this film, but casting herself as the truck-driving lesbian was a bit too much! Yes, it was realistic --- but therein lies the problem! Visually, I'd have much rather seen a hot-looking, sexy, dark-haired woman seducing the beautiful Victoria Abril. I mean, to put it a different way: beautiful bodies a more enjoyable film do make!
Rating: 
Summary: Ridiculous Lesbian Fantasy
Review: Sometimes I think that telling you too much of the plot of the movie on the back of the box, and having those reviews on the box telling you how great the movie is can be a mistake. Maybe I had too much expectation when I sat down to watch this movie because although it was somewhat enjoyable, I just never really got all that involved in it, or took too much away from it. Really good movies, and really bad movies both leave a lasting impression in my mind, and I like to talk about them afterwards, this one, when it was done, that was it, back into its box and back to the video store to be quietly forgotten. I've heard them say that love is blind, and from some things I have seen, that is sometimes true, but I'm not blind. That might be one of the problems I had with this movie, I just wasn't convinced that these two women could actually fall in love. There seemed to be no real chemistry between them, and I really couldn't even buy into the butch character, smoking her smelly cigars, and dressing like a man. How many stereotypes did we really need in this movie anyway? Overacting, and overreacting are two of the biggest flaws that I found in the movie. When the unfaithful husband realizes that his wife and this butch woman who has invaded his house have something going on between them, his overreaction and overacting are hard to bear. I watched in a kind of numb disinterest as he raved back and forth, like he was mister innocence himself, and still the scene extended on and on, long past the time when it should have quietly slipped away. And then it continues on the next day as he rants some more, as he and his friend go on a bike ride, and he unconvincingly breaks down some more at a little restaurant or coffee shop. Who writes this stuff? That was the worst, although there was another scene that was almost as bad, when two of the lesbians other friends happen to show up, and the wife flips out almost as much as her husband did earlier. This scene was painful to watch, and I couldn't imagine who would have really stayed around for the uncomfortable scenes that happen during the dinner, and after it. It seemed so unbelievable, and the wifes reaction so out in left field that I was cringing through the scene, though I believe it was supposed to be dramatically funny. The ending left me hanging a little bit, not seeming to be a big enough payoff for the hour and a half I had invested into the movie. However, I can live with it as long as they don't try to expand on it with a French Twist 2. Let well enough alone. This movie is at least worth a rental, but no more than that, if only to see Abril, who plays the wife. She is very beautiful, and except for the one unbelievable scene where she flips out, seems to be the best of the actors or actresses who starred in this movie. If she could pick better movies, she would really be something to see, so check it out, at least for her.
Rating:
Summary: Don't expect too much, you'll enjoy it more then
Review: Sometimes I think that telling you too much of the plot of the movie on the back of the box, and having those reviews on the box telling you how great the movie is can be a mistake. Maybe I had too much expectation when I sat down to watch this movie because although it was somewhat enjoyable, I just never really got all that involved in it, or took too much away from it. Really good movies, and really bad movies both leave a lasting impression in my mind, and I like to talk about them afterwards, this one, when it was done, that was it, back into its box and back to the video store to be quietly forgotten. I've heard them say that love is blind, and from some things I have seen, that is sometimes true, but I'm not blind. That might be one of the problems I had with this movie, I just wasn't convinced that these two women could actually fall in love. There seemed to be no real chemistry between them, and I really couldn't even buy into the butch character, smoking her smelly cigars, and dressing like a man. How many stereotypes did we really need in this movie anyway? Overacting, and overreacting are two of the biggest flaws that I found in the movie. When the unfaithful husband realizes that his wife and this butch woman who has invaded his house have something going on between them, his overreaction and overacting are hard to bear. I watched in a kind of numb disinterest as he raved back and forth, like he was mister innocence himself, and still the scene extended on and on, long past the time when it should have quietly slipped away. And then it continues on the next day as he rants some more, as he and his friend go on a bike ride, and he unconvincingly breaks down some more at a little restaurant or coffee shop. Who writes this stuff? That was the worst, although there was another scene that was almost as bad, when two of the lesbians other friends happen to show up, and the wife flips out almost as much as her husband did earlier. This scene was painful to watch, and I couldn't imagine who would have really stayed around for the uncomfortable scenes that happen during the dinner, and after it. It seemed so unbelievable, and the wifes reaction so out in left field that I was cringing through the scene, though I believe it was supposed to be dramatically funny. The ending left me hanging a little bit, not seeming to be a big enough payoff for the hour and a half I had invested into the movie. However, I can live with it as long as they don't try to expand on it with a French Twist 2. Let well enough alone. This movie is at least worth a rental, but no more than that, if only to see Abril, who plays the wife. She is very beautiful, and except for the one unbelievable scene where she flips out, seems to be the best of the actors or actresses who starred in this movie. If she could pick better movies, she would really be something to see, so check it out, at least for her.
Rating:
Summary: A charming, sophisticated and hilarious comedy!
Review: This is definitely one of the funniest, sexiest films I've seen in the last year. It's also sharp and thought-provoking, challenging trite notions about the nature of sexual orientation, love and so-called "family values." Perhaps that's why some of the other viewers disliked it intensely. Josiane Balasko is charming, sexy and competely believable in one of the best portrayals of a butch lesbian on film. She and Abril are wonderful together -- both hot and tender. This film is emphatically not about a family being ripped apart, but about a self-centered philanderer's discovery of the true nature of love and his subsequent metamorphosis as he (Chabat) and his wife (Abril) struggle to construct a new, more satisfying type of family. Of course, this process is not easy for anyone, and the film eschews facile, Hollywood-style endings. Still, this is a fantasy, not necessarily a model for behavior -- "good to think," as Levi-Strauss believed all cultural productions are, and as enchanting as a folktale. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: An OK but not a Very Good Film
Review: This is not a very good film. It is supposed to be a comedy. Unfortunately, Josiane Balasko, so wonderful as Gerard Depardieu's forbidden love interest in Bertrand Blier's "Too Beautiful for You" (1990), shows here that she can be a heavy-handed director, a comedy screenwriter without wit, and a comic actress who simply isn't funny. This is a movie with no good lines, unforgivable in a comedy. There are, however, two bright lights in the film, the only actors who do manage to be funny: Ticky Holgado, a supporting actor who plays the business partner and best friend of the humorless male lead (Alain Chabat), and the ever delightful Victoria Abril, one of the two female stars of the love triangle (the other being the humorless Ms. Balasko), whose physical displays almost save the film. Victoria Abril is a wonderful and underrated actress, still breathtakingly gorgeous at age 36 (recognizable to most viewers from Pedro Almodovar's "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!"), who displays her physical gifts with wit and abandon. For some people her presence will be enough to justify purchasing this DVD. This writer, in fact, despite his negativity toward the film, purchased the DVD while owning the VHS tape, but he confesses unashamedly to having been secretly in love with Ms. Abril for almost two decades, even with her clothes on. This film enjoyed an enormous box-office success in France, and has pleased most American movie critics. It is not without entertainment value. But it could have been so much more.
Rating:
Summary: An OK but not a Very Good Film
Review: This is not a very good film. It is supposed to be a comedy. Unfortunately, Josiane Balasko, so wonderful as Gerard Depardieu's forbidden love interest in Bertrand Blier's "Too Beautiful for You" (1990), shows here that she can be a heavy-handed director, a comedy screenwriter without wit, and a comic actress who simply isn't funny. This is a movie with no good lines, unforgivable in a comedy. There are, however, two bright lights in the film, the only actors who do manage to be funny: Ticky Holgado, a supporting actor who plays the business partner and best friend of the humorless male lead (Alain Chabat), and the ever delightful Victoria Abril, one of the two female stars of the love triangle (the other being the humorless Ms. Balasko), whose physical displays almost save the film. Victoria Abril is a wonderful and underrated actress, still breathtakingly gorgeous at age 36 (recognizable to most viewers from Pedro Almodovar's "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!"), who displays her physical gifts with wit and abandon. For some people her presence will be enough to justify purchasing this DVD. This writer, in fact, despite his negativity toward the film, purchased the DVD while owning the VHS tape, but he confesses unashamedly to having been secretly in love with Ms. Abril for almost two decades, even with her clothes on. This film enjoyed an enormous box-office success in France, and has pleased most American movie critics. It is not without entertainment value. But it could have been so much more.
Rating: 
Summary: cheated house wife turns into a player
Review: This was a funny and charming movie. Wife learns she can be sexual in ways she didn't realize, and tries to have her cake and eat it too. Boy, she turned into a player. Guess she's poly amorous now! Fun lighthearted comedy.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious
Review: Very, very funny. Smart, characters are well done
Rating:
Summary: Victoria Abril is wonderful, but her films always stink.
Review: Victoria Abril is wonderful, sexy, gorgeous, and naked...as she usually is in her films. I have and will watch anything she does and enjoy every moment she is on screen. In most cases I hate the films she is in. They are crude and violent. They substitute lust for love and rape for romance. This particular film is about a very butch lesbian who aims to destroy Abril's shaky marriage. The lesbian character is the most ugly, annoying, without-merit individual ever to be put on screen and it is unrealistic to think that Victoria Abril's character would want to be near her let alone make love to her. But then there is Victoria Abril running around the house with nothing on but an apron, if that. What's one to do? Throw the baby out with the bathwater? No. The lesbian loves her and stays. The husband loves her and stays. I keep watching. Hoping that the wonderful Victoria does some better films. The Spanish actress does Spanish, Italian, and French films and is very brave and uninhibited. She has been quoted to saying she goes naked in film and in public when she doesn't have anything nice to wear (apparently those Europeans have been slipping her horrible wardrobes a lot). She has created stirs by going au natural on Miami beaches and by wearing see-through outfits at swanky openings. She has even admitted going all the way with some of her co-actors during filming of her love scenes to achieve realism (most famously "Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down" and "High Heels"). Such dedication can be criticized but she certainly does give her all to any performance, never holding back. Where the actress ends and the character begins is seemless. Now that the Academy Awards is paying attention to foreign speaking actors it would be a crime if this woman did not win an Oscar sometime in the future. Perhaps they are afraid she'll show up naked. If only. Then the Awards would be worth watching. I give Victoria Abril five stars, the film two stars (one for casting Victoria Abril and the second for giving her ugly clothes she won't wear.) This averages to 3 1/2 stars.
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