Director: Yann Samuell
AKA: Love Me If You Dare.
Language: French.
Release Year: 2003.
Rating: * (Yeah, that bad)
France is considered to be the uncrowned city of love, and it’s no surprise for French romantic movies to add to the sheen of that unofficial title. Now, as the rule suggests, there’s always an exception to any rule, at least for this case in point, there is.
Sophie and Julien (Marion Cotillard and Guillaume Canet) have shared an unbreakable yet, an unconventional bond of friendship all their lives. They started off on a sour note, but built on it tremendously. So much so that everything they did, would eventually play a part in the silly game of “dare” they stringed almost every event in their lives with, with a candy tin being the coveted trophy. The dare would be as outrageous as coming up with as many cuss words starting with the letter “B” in front of a teacher during their primary schooling, or peeing oneself right in front of the principal while he’s rebuking them for their less than civilized antics. The dare would even take outlandish and lewd turn as asking a fully grown-up Sophie to wear her lingerie on top of her clothes, while she’s taking her Math exam, and sometimes, even as heartbreaking as not seeing each other for a prolonged period of time.
Couple of such dares cause an irrevocable damage to either’s personal lives, but both of them always manage to pick up the pieces without holding any grudges, and continue with their amateurish routine. Julien faces alienation from his dad as an outcome to one of Sophie’s dare, and later, Sophie finds herself at the receiving end of this puerile and blunt stick. The unconcern shown during every turn of their lives, all thanks to this game, starts to raise a question mark about their true feelings for one another. None of them could put a finger of certainty when faced with the prospect of love, to ascertain if the other person’s requital is genuine or just another dare. Such silly gags form the basis for plenty of emotional manipulation directed towards a novice viewer, but for veteran movie buffs, such tricks would only be met with scorn and guffaw.
After sitting through the 3/4th of the movie, the plot started to materialize in an admirable fashion, but only to be cut short by its threadbare inclination to wager everything at the cost of one’s feelings. Both the characters were ready to jeopardize everything, indifferent to the hearts they were breaking so ruthlessly, left, right and center. And down the slope the movie rode again, and never could it recover from the repulsive shape it deformed into.
Director tried to pull the “Amelie” yarn over our eyes, only to fall face-first miserably. The execution could nowhere ape the charm and wit of Amelie, despite using similar color tones, eccentric characterizations, peppy score and a poor man’s attempt at avant-garde narrative that was of Amelie. The cast is sweet and talented, but the unsavory screenplay and the incoherent routes taken by the director to prove his point, didn’t do any justice to the competency these actors possessed. Marion Cotillard is adorable as ever, instilling her scenes with her trademark élan, and Guillaume Canet is beaming with spontaneity, and has enough credibility to match up to his female counterpart. But even world-class thespians could carry and lift a pointless movie as this only so much. Thanks to the director’s hubris and pretentious take on what could’ve been a sweet affair, the movie is reduced to a mere train wreck.
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