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HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME NOT... Send This Review to a Friend
Just when the ultra cute ways of beautiful Audrey Tautou along the lines of her "Amélie" performance have begun to become grating, she now turns up in a dandy French psychological thriller involving obsession and dire consequences. To be sure, at the start Tautou as Angélique, a young artist, gives us her bubbly side, but before long the all-consuming love she feels for Loïc (Samuel Le Bihan), a doctor, turns the character into one much different from those Tautou has played before. In some respects the film calls to mind François Truffaut's "The Story of Adele H," but in other ways it owes more to Chabrol. Whatever the comparisons, "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not" is an original neatly written and directed by Laetitia Colombani.
The fixation upon Loïc as the love of her life begins to take on the appearance of a naïve but loving woman cruelly dumped after being used in a casual fling by a married man. Skillfully, the film moves along enticingly as it paints an elaborate picture of love rejected. But Colombani isn't finished with us. There comes a point when the film shifts gears and grows more ominous.
It would really be unfair to reveal much more than this, since an audience deserves to come to the developments as freshly as possible. The supporting cast is excellent, and the pacing is swift and suspenseful. Complications mount, and the writer-director leaves us with a devilish open ending. Tautou is extremely effective in this opportunity to show more of her range. A Samuel Goldwyn release.
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