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...She's ba-a-a-ack.
...But this time
cute and cuddly are not on the menu.
...That would be
Audrey Tautou, the beguiling Audrey Hepburn-resembling
French star whom American audiences fell in
love with two years ago in Amelie.
...But Amelie
was an endearing, life-affirming fable, a romantic
comedy bursting with charm and cheer.
...He
Loves Me, He Loves Me Not may sound
similarly sunny, but this unusual romantic drama
has a very different forecast on its radar screen,
as picture-postcard Paris gives way to bumpy
Bordeaux.
Debuting writer-director Laetitia Colombani
has a gutsy gimmick up her sleeve, and it works
up quite a head of steam.
...The film's first
half is a diverting romance starring Tautou
as an art student having an affair with a married
cardiologist who appears to be breaking it off
out of devotion to his pregnant wife.
Because of which the deliriously attached, spurned
lover becomes unhinged and loses her reason
to live--or to follow any conventional rules
of behavior.
...Then, abruptly,
the film stops, rewinds in fast motion, and
tells the same essential story again, but this
time from the point of view of the object of
her affection.
Well, infection is more like it.
...HLMHLMN
segues into a tale of selective perception that--without
giving anything away here--paints a portrait
of obsession, delusion, and psychosis as it
gradually pulls a rug out from under you..
...Yep, Amelie
has relocated to Fatal
Attraction-ville by way of the Rashomon
highway.
...Is there a slight
air of self-congratulatory smugness to the film
as it reveals its central conceit?
...Yes.
...But it's still
clever and compelling, you still can't take
your grateful eyes off Audrey Tautou, and if
there isn't an abundance of conventional emotional
suspense, this is nonetheless a fascinatingly
focused exercise in mental and cinematic gymnastics.
...So we'll fall
madly in love with 3
stars out of 4 for the surprising
and sinister He Loves
Me, He Loves Me Not.
...A fresh and
frosty romantic thriller that, along with Audrey
Tautou, takes a bi-polar approach to Valentine's
Day.
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