Reviews

Oh boy, no, it's definitely him! Was it really meant to be a love story ? The guy kidnaps her, threatens to beat her if she tries to get out of the car, bursts in her house uninvited, yells at her, pushes her around, all the while pretending he loves her after a few hours of meeting her.

She tells him « it's not there » and he replies : « I think it is » just before hitting the walls and screaming that girls usually love him so she cannot not be in love with him... she tries to end it and still be nice about it and so he threatens to kill himself, cuts his moustache instead... I mean... how can anyone watch this movie and not find it terribly creepy? The guy is a nutcase but still, he proposes to her after 3 days and she accepts.

And remember, the guy looks like he is 70 (even though the actor really is about 35) when Gena Rowlands is beautiful and obviously upper class. He is a complete loser - even his mother says he is « not Einstein » but « a bum » who « has no ambition » and is « not pretty ». A terrible mismatch that would make anyone uncomfortable. Oh but they get married... how desperate can a girl be ?

However, in the end, we are supposed to believe that it was actually a match made in heaven because we see a child's birthday party that seems to be going really well. Hurray for the underdog !

So many plot holes !

Why do the men die for real in the simulation but not the women? Why does the boss' wife stab him in the end ? Did she know all along ? It really seems like it but why would she have accepted to live in this virtual world ? What happens to Franck and her during the day when the men check out of their virtual reality? What kind of work do they do in the real world ? What does Franck get out of being a virtual boss and committing all these crimes ? When Margaret slit her throat did she die for real? Why does Franck say he wants to be challenged? What did he expect and why provoke Pugh's character?

And most importantly, since it seems that Pugh's character is being held captive in her own home, why is no one looking for her ?

Anyway, it is still a very enjoyable movie. It is obvious that this idealized 1950s world is a fantasy right from the start and I get why people could be drawn to this simple and beautiful world of the past. Why fragile and selfish little men, easily threatened by women's rights, could long for a different life with different rules. That part makes sense but the rest really does not and it is too bad because, otherwise, I would have given this movie a higher rating.

Amalric is the new young Johnny Depp apparently. He is soooooo incredibly hot that every woman he meets falls in love with him. More than that. They all throw themselves at him. He is like a prey and they are all predators. Of course he turns out to be a killer but I am guessing that the viewer is supposed to feel sorry for him.

His character is arrogant, pedantic but he is meant to be charismatic, if not outright goddamn sexy. Everything about the story is ludicrous but I can't tell what's worse : the dialogues? The acting? The storyline? Or the casting?

If you manage to go through the whole movie, it is probably because you have decided to mock everything about it. From the way one of his female students, daughter of a French Tony Soprano, sexually harasses this old man so full of himself you want to punch him in the face. From the woman who pretends to be the stepmother of the young girl who has disappeared when she is actually an undercover cop with a soft spot for killers (because of course she is in love with Amalric and has sex with him multiple times). From the fact that they just had to add an incestuous element to this lame story.

See what I mean? French cinema has a lot more to offer I swear! Why so many famous actors decided to participate in yet another « navet » escapes me completely.

Hard to believe it was not a movie meant for television... If it weren't for its famous actors, this film would have absolutely nothing to show for itself. Marine Vacht is as beautiful as always and I managed to go through this boring and predictable « navet » because of her. Otherwise, move along, there is nothing to see.

In the end the French guy ends up with the French girl and the gorgeous but scorned Chinese woman falls for the Chinese guy that you get to see less than one minute. I would not go as far as to say the script was racist but it is terribly devoid of any imagination and originality. But all is well and ends well. Justice will prevail and order is restored. A very forgettable story.

I don't even know where to begin but I certainly cannot believe this awful movie has such good ratings on IMDb. It makes absolutely no sense when the writing, the acting, the directing and even the music are so dramatically bad.

Forget about realism, romance, erotism or whatever, the woman played by Romy Schneider is hysterical half the time. Her husband is a weirdo who suddenly decides to poison himself in the rest room of some café just after she has told him that she loves him more than anything else. Then we see her at the morgue and who is already standing there, next to the body? No one else but her (wannabe or soon to be) lover who bursts out laughing, saying her husband should have killed himself before meeting her. Then of course she tells him that nothing can ever happen between them after this.

And what do we see next ? An old woman putting on a strap on dildo to rape a young naked girl who has passed out. That does it and the « hero » of the movie decides to stop taking pictures of orgies and disgusting sexual encounters. Old men decide to beat him up ; Nadine, in tears, finds him on the floor, covered in blood and says « je t'aime » repeatedly, the movie thereby ending just as it has begun. Indeed the movie starts when Servais takes pictures of Nadine acting but having trouble with her role : she is asked to tell a dead man she loves him but that makes her cry. Funny thing: in this opening scene she tells the director that she cannot do it because the movie is too bad.

That is spot on. The movie in which Nadine pretends to be playing could never be as bad as the one in which Romy really played. I have rarely seen such a « navet ». It beggars belief that Romy Schneider got a César for this terrible film or that it was released in dvd.

If you want to get a feel of how dumb people were in the 70s go ahead and rent it at your local library but please, do not give it a raving review when everything about it is grotesque and ridiculous.

The main character is a bored house wife who does not even enjoy her affair with a Parisian polo player although she spends a lot of time with him, away from her family in the whereabouts of Dijon.

We are supposed to believe that she suddenly falls in love with a perfect stranger whom she barely spent a few hours with, along with her husband, her lover and her girlfriend. He seduces her at the end of an awful dinner with a few verses of poetry.

It merely takes a few minutes and they start professing their love for one another. He tells her that he wants a child from her and that he loves her daughter, that he has never met. And they run off together at dawn, not even bothering to hide their escape.

I get that it was meant to be erotic and romantic at the time but it has not aged well. Very few words are exchanged and the viewer understands that it is not a very stimulating life that she leads. It is probably why poetry works so well with her but it is impossible to imagine that this woman would abandon a priviledged life and her child for a man she has met a few hours ago.

I love rom coms. I am not difficult and I actually like Sophie Marceau and Gad Elmaleh as actors. Yet the storyline is terribly devoid of any originality. The rich but clumsy girl meets the sweet but unattached boy who just won't commit and of course they fall in love and end up together but on the way you have to go through a whole movie where Sophie Marceau keeps stumbling and falling down and where the new couple is constantly being interrupted by something or someone. I guess it was supposed to be funny but it really wasn't. It buys time because nothing really happens and it hard to make a movie with nothing. So the film is full of clichés : the slap she gives him when she finds out he's being unfaithful, the powerful and ruthless ex husband who uses money to get people to do what he wants, the lies she tells him for his own good (as if she could not have told him she loves him and will wait for him to get back to New York in 6 months) etc.

I have rarely been so bored watching a romantic comedy.

With such a terrible ending ? I'm all for a bit of drama but this was too much.

There is a lot of tension throughout the film and the love story, which should be the key element, feels under developed. It is hard to believe the two teenagers are in love. Not much chemistry between them and why make love for the first time in a basement when everybody knows it's where girls get raped in bad neighborhoods? Why miss the opportunity for sensuality? Everything happens too fast and everybody seems to lose their heads at every turn. The boy's father loses his job, the girl's brother gets fired over nothing, the girl's friend betrays her. It all escalates and you are left with nothing much since the film's love scenes must have lasted 5 minutes.

It is hard to find fault with a movie when you know it is an adaptation of a novel but I cannot help myself : why didn't Tess seek help with her husband's family while he was gone ? Why didn't they ask for her when they knew their son had gone away to Brazil? Angel had specifically told Tess he wanted to keep up appearances so it made no sense why she began to work in such dreadful conditions that she had to ask for her rapist's help!

And in the end, when Angel finally steps up and comes for her, why does Tess kill Alec ? She just had to leave him and go with her husband and everything would have been fine!

I don't mind drama but there was no need for the story to end with her hanging when she was the one who had been « sinned against » as Angel rightly put it.

However Nastassja Kinski is so incredibly beautiful in this movie that the viewer just has to keep watching. The pace of the film is too slow and the story unnecessarily sad but the casting of Tess really makes it worthwhile.

Why bother with realism and decide to end the movie in such a stupid and improbable way?

Who could believe a Pastor, who thought she could never conceive but miraculously gets pregnant, will seriously contemplate abortion just because there is a 5% chance the baby might be disabled?

And who could believe that same Pastor would get drunk and ask an inmate (who is rumoured to have magical powers but who left her own baby die of thirst) for help before finally deciding to yell what she got convicted for in total violation of her work ethics?

And who could believe that the inmate, suddenly shunned from everyone else when learning what she got convicted for, would immediately kill herself while the Pastor would go on having an abortion ?

All on the same day of course... and I won't even mention the storyline where a guard mysteriously falls in love with that same inmate, despite knowing what she is in for, and breaks all the rules without even taking the slightest precautions to make sure no one finds out about them. Until of course people do find out and he decides to break up the relationship on the very same day that the stupid Pastor divulges the inmate's shameful secret which makes her lose all her « friends ».

I mean : melodramatic much?!

I really liked the idea of a female Pastor confronted with an extralucid inmate but the idea was ruined for me by a badly written script from a writer who just wanted to have the most depressing ending instead of keeping up with realism.

Don't bother watching. It has no redeemable quality.

I have read many reviews before writing my own because I wanted to make sure I had not missed part of the plot.

The film is intense and Omar is immensely likable and brave. The ending catches the viewer off guard but actually does not seem over the top or implausible. It is obviously a « pro-palestinian » movie but expecting any different would make no sense given the story line.

The real problem for me is this : the Isrealis are led to believe that Tarek is the soldier's killer when Amjad is the one who pulled the trigger. Now who would have had good reason to lie besides Amjad? For some reason his friends don't suspect him. But what really gets me is that Amjad would have had no reason to implicate Tarek instead of Omar. He wants to marry Tarek's sister who is in love with Omar. So why in the world would he have protected Omar? And since he was never caught and tortured by the Israelis why would he have turned on his friends in the first place ?

Also, why would he have told the Israelis that Nadia was pregnant with his child? How did that serve his interest with the police ? I understand that it was the smart thing to say to Omar when he was found out as the true mole, but he had already told the lie to the Israelis who allude to it when trying to break Omar's will.

These inconsistencies weaken the plot. Amjad is a despicable traitor but gets to live and « get the girl » when he is almost solely responsible for everything that got wrong in her life. The viewer is led to assume that she is told the truth in a letter Omar wrote to her before he kills the Isreali policeman but what good does that do to her ? She is left with a husband that she will forever hate whereas the two men she loved are dead.

I suppose Omar tells her that he will kill the man who broke their lives apart by turning Amjad against all of them. It is all about revenge now that everything is lost. Omar hates himself for not trusting Nadia and believing his friend's word when he already knew he had betrayed them and it makes sense that he would want to punish the Isreali officer who brought out the worst in all of them.

Again, all of this feels possible, except for the fact that Amjad was never put in a position where betrayal and crazy lies about Nadia's pregnancy would have felt like the only option.

A sombre tale of love, hate, loyalty and distrust that would have been better if the screen writer had found a way to fill this huge plot hole !

Best film of 2011 according to Télérama. Must have been a very bad year movie-wise then.

I picked it at my local library thanks to this false advertisement and the picture on the dvd case which, again, leads to false assumptions.

All you see is this 34 year old guy who tries to commit suicide twice, at the beginning and at the end of the film. The viewer does not know for sure if he succeeds at the end but he probably does.

Anyway, the reason why he got addicted at 28 years old is unclear. He had a good job, a loving family, a devoted girlfriend and a large circle of friends. 6 years later, getting out of rehab, he does not seem to be a very nice guy based on certain clues throughout the movie.

It is never said that he suffers from depression so the reason why he wants to die so badly is completely lost on me. Are we supposed to feel sorry for him? Is it a beautiful story because he wants to die and you are led to believe that life is a pointless mess anyway?

I expected a different movie and a lot more from it too.

So I get it: it is supposed to be poetic but it's only very slow and meaningless. The main character wants to be a poet but he really is just a bus driver, living in a small town and sharing a small house with a sweet and gentle soul who also happens to be dillusional or just plain dumb, depending if you want to be charitable or not. Farahani is actually great at playing the adoring girlfriend who believes Paterson is the next great American poet, if only he would agree to let others read his poems - and she the next great country singer, if only she knew how to play the guitar. But hey wait, she is living the dream : she is the « « cupcake queen of Paterson » as her boyfriend called her before finding his « secret notebook » torn apart by the dog she loves and he hates.

That is the story.

Ah I forgot : he meets a 10 year old girl who writes much, much better poems than he does.

Anyway, it was a bit pretentious but the actors make it work because they are who they are.