He Loves Me...He Loves Me Not

When you are in love, sometimes the simplest gesture from your beloved - a glance, a word, the gift of a perfect rose - can make your head spin and the world reel, so that, for a moment or two, all your dreams seem to have come true at once. Laetitia Colombani's 'He Loves Me...He Loves Me Not' is a careful examination of such a love, tracing from multiple perspectives the beginnings of passion, the giddy excitement of a secret affair, and then the sorrow of separation and the suicidal despair of the final split.

Art student Angelique is madly in love with cardiologist Loic, and every moment she spends out of his arms is filled with anticipation, jealousy and torment. Played by Audrey Tautou in a clever reprise of her role in 'Amelie', Angelique positively radiates youthful desire and innocence on the screen, painting a thoroughly believable picture of amour fou. Samuel Le Bihan, on the other hand, captures perfectly the cooler ambivalence of the older, married Loic, still devoted to his wife Rachel (Isabelle Carre), and becoming gradually more anxious about Angelique's deteriorating behaviour. This is, however, largely a tale of two halves, so that the very few moments that Tautou and Le Bihan actually spend on screen together are all the more electric for their rarity.

'He Loves Me...He Loves Me Not' is a romance, concerned in its entirety with the workings of the human heart, but its focus on the bitter along with the sweet introduces all sorts of unexpected emotional twists and turns. The script, co-written by Colombani and Caroline Thivel, is quite simply a marvel, flawlessly dissecting the ups and downs of longing, infatuation and uncompromising commitment.

This is a film as refreshing, exciting, and unpredictable as a new relationship, putting an original and surprising spin on an age-old story. To see it is to experience for yourself that feeling of having your heart wrenched first one way, and then the other.

Anton Bitel, 27.01.03