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Sophie and Julien are childhood friends whose games of dare escalate and grow ever darker as they become adults. At first their games are an innocent way of escaping their troubled lives. But as they grow up and fall in love, they hide their true feelings behind their increasingly dangerous challenges. Can they ever stop playing games and admit that they love each other?
“Love Me if You Dare” is writer-director Yann Samuell’s first live-action feature. But the former animator’s earlier career shines through in this bittersweet romance. It is a sweet romantic comedy overlaid with broad strokes of cartoon violence. There are plenty of flights of fancy worthy of “Amelie”, including a sequence in the Garden of Eden where the young Sophie and Julien are being chastised by God (who is a thinly veiled school headmaster). But these moments of sweetness are tempered by those of extreme viciousness and cruelty, as the young lovers’ dares escalate into a game of tit-for-tat, trying to goad each other into expressing their true feelings. Whether Julien is daring Sophie to stand blindfolded on the railway tracks or she is challenging him to sleep with a girl and bring back her earrings as proof or to dump his bride at the altar, the
dares take on a grotesque cartoon humour that only the main protagonists find funny. But the characters are so well developed and so clearly meant to be together that we are on their side and we laugh along with them. It is interesting that as the pair age, the focus of their dares changes from embarrassing others to embarrassing each other, consequently narrowing their horizons as the real world encroaches on their fantasy existence.
Samuell’s background in animation is once more evident in the film’s overall visual style. He employs a fuzzy, nostalgic shooting style for the childhood scenes, replete with muted colours. In contrast, the fantasy sequences are shot in glorious Technicolor, employing a wilfully cartoonish style, with lots of cardboard cut-outs building up the backgrounds and costumes. Samuell also uses animation to link scenes. The main protagonists have a tin shaped like a carousel that they pass back and forth, depending on whose turn it is to set the bets. The director has come up with some fabulous segues that involve the carousel as a real roundabout, complete with painted horses and organ music that add a magical quality to the film.
The standard of acting all-round is very high. Marion Cotillard and Guillame Canet (who play the adult Sophie and Julien) carry most of the film on their young shoulders. Cotillard’s star is very much in the ascendant at the moment. Whether she’s starring in the successful French-language action comedy “Taxi” films or big Hollywood movies like Tim Burton’s “Big Fish” she does a good line in strong but vulnerable women. Though Sophie may be manipulative and cruel at times, Cotillard brings manages to make a sympathetic character out of her and makes it clear that she isn’t a bad person, she’s just misguided and really wants to be loved. Canet does tall, dark and handsome very well, as those who have seen him in “The Beach” would probably agree. He can act too, easily conveying Julien’s complex relationships with both Sophie and his father. He displays an innocence that is in stark contrast to Sophie’s machinations and his seemingly passive nature makes his adult revenge on Sophie all the more shocking when it comes. That being said, his rebellion against the woman controlling him is easily forgotten during their tender love scenes.
The very young actors playing the young Julien and Sophie (Thibault Verhaeghe and Joséphine Lebas-Joly respectively) are sweet without being sickly. Why we Brits can’t nurture consistently talented child actors who don’t overact is beyond me. Of the remaining cast, my personal favourite is Gilles Lelouche, who plays Sophie’s footballer boyfriend Sergei Nimov Nimovitch. It’s a great caricature of the endless array of soccer stars we are subjected to on a daily basis, being vain, stupid and unable to formulate an opinion alone. His transformation from mulletted also-ran to Eric Cantona style superstar striker is worth a few laughs.
Somewhat bizarrely, the soundtrack consists almost solely of versions of “La Vie en Rose” performed by the likes of Edith Piaf, Louis Armstrong and French popstrel Zazie. But though the song may be the same, the execution is so different on each track that my other half didn’t even realise it was the same song. The style of each is such that they can each suggest a different mood, whether it is melancholic, happy or somewhere in between, so it works. As do the subtitles, which bridge the gap between translating the story literally and giving an English accent to the distinctly Gallic dialogue.
Some will complain that there is no concrete resolution to the story. I would argue (and Yann Samuell would probably agree) that this is a good thing because it leaves the audience to decide whether the ending is happy or sad and whether true love has conquered all.
This is a film that will appeal to those for whom the ordinary run-of-the-mill romantic comedies are too cloying. It is like a cake with a mousetrap inside it; sweet but with added bite. See this if you liked “Amélie” if you thought it would have been better if it had a darker edge.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 2004 - Drama - Director: Nick Cassavetes - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, 12 years and over - Starring: Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Gena Rowlands
Production Year: 2000 - Drama - Director: Giuseppe Tornatore - Original Language: Italian - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Monica Bellucci, Giuseppe Sulfaro, Luciano Federico, Matilde Piana
I've never heard of it, but it sounds intriguing. Lynne x
AimeeLouise18 09.09.2004 11:43
I've never heard of this film but you've definitely wet my appetite for it.It sounds quite interesting and it's something I've never really seen (I haven't seen Amelie before or anything else with this kind of plotline).
Aimee xxx
Love Me If You Dare is a visually inventive and darkly comic romantic fantasy where two ... more
childhood friends take their game of dare to the extreme...Sophie (Marion Cotillard, Big Fish) and Julien (Guillaume Canet, The Beach) escape their troubles by sett...
Advantages: smashing movie with smart story, original presentation, outstanding performances Disadvantages: No real disadvantages but it's very unique, you either love it or hate it
Advantages: smashing movie with smart story, original presentation, outstanding performances Disadvantages: No real disadvantages but it's very unique, you either love it or hate it
Sep 8th, 2004
exceptional by (4%):
very helpful by (88%):
helpful by (8%):
