I Loved It Not! (He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not (DVD))

Member Name: Zmugzy

Product:	He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not (DVD)
Date:	15/07/09 (186 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Audrey Tautou

Disadvantages: Clumsy script and weak storyline

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not - is the silly English title given to the French film 'A La Folie... Pas Du Tout' and was first released in 2002. What might be described as a romantic thriller was the debut by director Laetitia Colombani who also wrote the script alongside Caroline Thivel. This is a review about the film only.

The film stars Audrey Tautou as the infatuated Angelique, a student who works part time in a café and has won a scholarship to art school (although only God knows how if you judge by the pretty awful drawing she does at the beginning of the film). It soon comes to light that the object of her mad desires (with the emphasis on mad) is cardiologist doctor Loic (Samuel Le Bihan). Loic is a married man, but Angelique convinces us and her frustrated friend and admirer David (Clément Sibony) that she's having an affair with him and that soon he will divorce his wife (Isabelle Carré) to be with her. Things take a turn however, when she discovers that Loic's wife is pregnant and Angelique's jealousy leads her to take desperate measures.

During this first half hour, the film comes across as a whimsical love story so clichéd that it almost had me pressing for the eject button. It is only after about 35 minutes that the film changes dramatically and you realise that the story is being portrayed from two different perspectives that will inevitably result in a final conclusion. After witnessing Angelique seemingly in love and apparently having an affair with the Doctor, we then see the same events portrayed through the eyes of Doctor Loic and his wife - it's then we realise Angelique is clearly no angel.

Visually the film is polished and aesthetically pleasing to the eye. I think the director might have been trying to use colour as an effective device to enhance the psychological tone of the story. In the first romantic part of the film the colours are bright and sunny only to change into darker and more neutral tones when we reach the second part. This is a good idea but it doesn't make up for other weaknesses.

The film is very much influenced by the Hollywood thriller format that dominated the 80s and 90s with quick plot changes and twists to the story. The first thirty odd minutes are dire and yes, I know this is supposed to set you up for what's to come but one can't help feeling that it could have been done a lot better. The opening plot is too sketchy with too much focus on the pretty face of Audrey Tautou and her brave attempt to carry the film fails to hide what is a very clumsy script and rather weak storyline. Although in the first half of the film there are some visual and audible clues to indicate all is not quite what it seems, the director fails to give enough hints at what are supposed to be disturbing underlying elements in Angelique's behaviour and personality.

There is nothing major wrong with the performances, it's just that there is an all round lack of character development. You get the feeling that the director was struggling to get the characters to interact and get some chemistry going. In my opinion Audrey Tautou is completely miscast in the movie. One reviewer described this film as revealing 'the darker side of Amelie' and one feels that the director has been strongly influenced by the way Tautou's character was portrayed in that film. I thought her character in 'He loves me...' was unconvincing because I never sensed anything seriously threatening about Tautou's delicate physique and there was nothing menacing in her innocent smiling face. At one point Angelique is suspected of violent murder but the thought of her tiny frame having the capacity to commit a physical murder struck me as absurd. It has to be said that sweet little Audrey Tautou just can't do 'wicked' like Glenn Close.

This is not a 'creepy little thriller' as one critic described it. If anything it borders on the comical. Indeed there are some overt comical moments in Dr Loic's surgery as he attempts to deal with the pretentious palpations of a female heart patient. I also giggled at some of Angelique's supposedly disturbing artwork that appears in the final sequences. Who knows... if the comic element had been developed a bit more it might have rescued what is ultimately a very average film which, despite Tautou's seductive charm, gets rather tedious towards the end of its 95 minutes.

Summary: Not a patch on Amelie.