Tuesday 14 July 2009

He loves me, he loves me not

Here is a writing of mine, a task from my recently finished Writing Class. It's a review of a movie called "À la folie…pas do tout" in which we all watched it together.

À la folie…pas do tout (2002)

(He loves me, he loves me not)

If you spot À la folie…pas do tout (2002) movie
poster
and assumed it to be a romantic comedy, well, you can kiss your assumption goodbye. It's actually a smart psychological drama with a twist, an imaginative French twist, that is.

Angelique (Audrey Tautou), the imaginative and talented art student falls in love with Loïc (Samuel Le Bihan), a cardiologist, and throughout the movie, we see her hard yet always-failed attempts to make him leave his pregnant wife, Rachel (Isabelle Carré). The first half of the movie then implicitly brings us the platonic love story from Angelique's viewpoint; her disappointments towards Loïc's attitude to her suicide attempt. But from there, it winds back and explains the same events from a different point of view. Then abruptly, the second part of the movie becomes a unique obsession suspense cum psychological flick instead of a regular love drama, with a twisting end that'll make your jaws drop. For that, we have to thank Laetitia Colombani as director.

The young French writer/director has an ability to build tension using arty setting; a brainy example is when a frighten Loïc found a stunning adult size mural of him by Angelique made from everyday items, including a dried rose he gave first time they met! Colombani, who also made the script along with co-writer Caroline Thievel, has cleverly presented a story of delusion and false perceptions in a thrilling yet entertaining way. It gets the tension of Fatal Attraction (1987) with the entertaining factors of a romantic comedy flick.

Tautou, forever known as Amélie in Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001), is pretty convincing in portraying the cheerful-yet-tricky-erotomaniac Angelique. Her big-brown eyes are the best camouflage to hide Angelique's lunacy. One loophole of the movie conversely, is the rather clichés performance and dialogues by Le Bihan resulting from a slightly unripe characterization of Loïc's (such as Loïc final meet up with Angelique). But this is only Colombani's first full-length movie, others being short ones. So we can expect more clever ideas coming from her, similar to her newest Mes stars et moi (2008).

Once the credit rolls, trust me, you'll be seeing crazy in-lovers in a new perspective. Next time your (girl) friend is in love; go ask yourself the same question as the tagline of the flick: "Is she crazy in love, …..or just CRAZY?"

Rating : ☺☺☺☺ (4 stars) Worth Watching

No comments: