User Reviews

I have to be 100% honest with you fellow IMDb users. I wanted to see this movie for a very long time only because of the poster. Doesn't Charlotte Gainsbourg looks extremely sexy and charming smiling that way? I'm in love with that woman! I got what I expected...but only half. This film should deliver expectations for those who enjoy all kinds of romantic comedies or stories involving intelligent humor and light dramatic situations.

While I don't agree with another fellow IMDb user who states that the movie is overrated; I must admit that "Préte-moi ta main" has plenty of flaws.

My main problem with the film is the lack of on screen chemistry between the main characters. There isn't a single scene previous to the climax that shows the main characters sharing a moment "of romance" or even a clue to suggest that they're interested in each other.

In fact, the only scene were both share a moment is tremendously awkward (when both are in the couch) and does not help the audience understand about a possible love interest. I didn't buy the dinner sequence.

Still, the movie delivers very funny moments and has a strong dialogs that support such an ingenuous premise. I mean with ingenuous that it would be very difficult to execute such a farse by a 43 year old man in these days.

I understand it's a movie and that's why I accept it as a funny situation. Plus, the humor is versatile. There are moments involving S&M, funny lines with Chabat's best friend, some lesbian references, funny situations involving the family women, and more.

Charlotte Gaionsbourg's performance is top notch and she's by far the reason to watch the movie. She's funny, sexy, looks very thin and fine, and demonstrates she's a versatile and talented actress who can pull out a comedic and dramatic performance in sheer brilliance.

Alain Chabat is a fine actor and gives a very decent performance. I think the supporting cast do what they can.

The score, art direction, and other technical aspects are really good and give a dynamic look to the film.

Those who enjoy this kind of cinema should be pleased after the ending credits. It's a good example of feel good cinema.

Forty-Year-Old Virgin meets Pretty Woman: that's the pitch, but it's the initial premise that'ss hard to get by. I never saw why he had to do all this.

This comes with no festival laurels, only some good box office (thanks to heavy promotion?) in France and average reviews there. Premise (from which we are not allowed a moment's respite): "Life is good for Luis (Alain Chabat). He's happily single, enjoys his job and is loved, cherished and pampered by his mother and five sisters. But one day, they decide it's time for him to marry. Luis hurriedly hatches a plan…He will find the perfect woman who will charm them. . ., and disappear on the day of the wedding. After that nobody will dare mention the word marriage to him again" (-- from the press kit).

The trouble with this comedy is that everything about it seems staged, beginning with the original family (which includes some male members omitted from the description above) and its elaborate dining room meetings and heavy bourgeois trappings. There never was a family like this outside of a French comedy – outside of this French comedy. The rapid fire introduction of family members – a shot for each with less than a sound bite – is typical of one of the film's main methods: it throws excessive amounts of unnecessary information at you in the hopes that it will keep your attention – and keep you from thinking how completely shallow all this contrivance is.

Luis is a perfume designer, and this introduces another elaborate set of contrived scenes and characters.

Enter Charlotte Gainsbourg. She is the sister (whom strangely Luis did not previously know) of Luis' best friend, and after exhaustive interviews of unsuccessful candidates for the fake bride, she's left.

Gainsbourg is a trouper, and a veteran of French film comedy. Those by her husband Yvan Atal were, however, much more nuanced and interesting than this Lupiece of fluff. And Gainsbourg's gamine look is beginning to show some signs of wear (too much dieting, too many cigarettes?). She still has the charm, but maybe she might try taking it into more serious, less frenetic roles.

After the wedding, which is lame, and no doubt borrowed from other film weddings rather than any known reality, Luis's mother collapses and is taken to the hospital – another of many fake gestures to liven things up.

And guess what happens? Oh, you'll never. Gaionsbourg and Chabat actually fall for each other. Wow. And then things get cute, and it's all over.

What a lot of work all this was to put together, and what a bore it is to watch! There are a great many better French comedies out there. Even among the formulaic ones we currently have The Valet/La doublure (Francis Veber), which is far more economical and amusing. Among the more interesting ones is the currently playing in New York Avenue Montaigne/Fauteuils d'orchestre, which was at the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema at Lincoln Center last year and belatedly got picked up. Or there is Laurent Tirard's (who worked on this) Mensonges et trahisons et plus si affinités--which has the likes of Clovis Cornillac to liven it up.

Another related comedy: Tanguy, about a man child who won't leave home. His hanging on with his wealthy parents is closer to contemporary European realities than Luis and his bossy extended family. He doesn't have to get married (though he does); he just has to move out of the house. The whole process is played for laughs, but it begins with a real situation. This doesn't. Mistake.

"I Do" is an enjoyable, if flawed film. It's far from a great French film but you could certainly do worse and it's a decent date night movie.

Luis is the only male in his family now that his father has died. The sisters and mother announce one day that they are tired of him being a bachelor in his 40s and he MUST get married ASAP. So, they begin setting him up with all sorts of women. They even go online and chat up women...pretending to be Luis himself! Not surprisingly, he wants them to leave him alone and sabotages each of these set-ups...after all, Luis is a rather shallow guy and LIKES living the swinging single life. But finally, out of exhaustion with their tactics, he decides to outsmart them. He pays Emma to pretend to be his fiancée and the plan is to eventually have her leave him at the alter...thus freeing him up, at least for a while, from his family's interference.

Where all this goes is very predictable--and even though there had been NO CHEMISTRY WHATSOEVER between Luis and Emma, by the end of the film, suddenly and inexplicably they decide to REALLY marry! But as I said, this comes with little warning and the build-up is unrealistically short. Stretching the story out a bit and giving more hints that they were falling in love would have made sense. As for Emma, she NEVER showed any signs and Luis only very near the end...which really hurt the film. It made is seem formulaic and very unrealistic.

For a very similar plot but with it being much better made, try "Bollywood/Hollywood"...a wonderful film with pretty much the same premise. However, it is handled much better and is a much more romantic comedy.

Alain Chabat is a fine actor, writer and director but maybe a trifle misguided to take an 'idea' credit for a story that probably had them rolling in the aisles when Aristophanes was still learning that it's 'i' before 'e' except after 'c'. But, like I said, Chabat is a fine actor and he can do charm when he needs to. I'm also gradually overcoming an aversion to Charlotte Gainsbourg who also turns in an accomplished performance. If you absolutely insist on knowing, the 'plot' is the one about the guy well into his forties and more than content to be single. This doesn't sit well with his mother and five sisters and to get them off his back he makes an 'arrangement' with the sister of a colleague to pose - for fifteen thousand euros -as his new girlfriend, allow the romance to come to fruition with a wedding and then jilt him, thus getting him off the hook. Naturally they wind up together but along the way there's some sub-Benedek and Beatrice duelling and all things considered it's a pretty painless ninety minutes and performing so well at the French box office that a sequel may not be out of the question.