|
|
From their childhood, Sophie (Marion Cotillard) and Julien (Guillaume Canet) play a game where they challenge each other to perform a series of outrageous dares. As their puppy love blossoms into full-blown romance, their game — a romantic Jumanji — takes a destructive turn. Sophie and Julien don't know where the game stops and where their real lives begin. Worse still, they don't know when to stop playing. Dizzily indulgent, Love Me If You Dare cements the stereotype of reckless French lovers. The movie depicts the notion of romantic love as something more than a devil-may-care attitude to life: it portrays love as an anarchic force, something that is powerfully destructive. Julien and Sophie are "like fire and powder, which, when they kiss, consume". Love Me If You Dare flashes the middle finger at the establishment and conventional wisdom. Sophie and Julien question authority, explore their sexuality and push the limits of what is socially acceptable. In doing so, the movie also challenges the audience's expectations of what a romantic comedy should feel like. What results is something twistedly funny: the audience laughs even when a character is in the throes of anguish. With its strained premise and use of fantasy sequences, Love Me If You Dare requires the audience to totally suspend belief. In one memorable sequence, young Sophie and Julien imagine themselves as Adam and Eve, wearing only fig leaves, tempted by their teacher (a sock-puppet serpent), and ultimately cast out of the garden of Eden by their irate principal (who plays God). The movie's whimsical presentation has invited comparisons with another French film, Amélie, although first-time director Yann Samuel insists that he conceived of the idea of the movie well before Amélie's release. There are superficial similarities: in both films, the protagonist's mother dies, and the widowed father has trouble accepting his loss. The two movies also challenge existing film conventions with their non-linear narration and indulgent visuals. But while Amélie is intimate and neurotic, Love Me If You Dare is edgy and madcap. French film has always been more creative and offbeat than standard Hollywood fare, but the success of these two filmfest favorites threatens to push French movies into a certain style. French filmmakers and international audiences must realize that there is more besides the cinematic whimsy that characterizes French movies today. And so it will be the strength of a good story, as in Love Me If You Dare and others like it, that will remain the most promising aspect of French film. And what other purpose does film serve if not to satiate our appetite for good stories?
 |
|
