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
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