the audience applauded

just watch it!

A Brilliant Conflict

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

In this movie there is no comprehensable storyline at all, and I didn't see any way clear to reach the end...

A Parisian leaves behind his fiancé to pursue an old flame but becomes involved with a third woman. It sounds like a good premise for a French comedy but this one is serious - except that it's laughably bad. The plot is so convoluted, with repeated flashbacks and events unfolding from multiple points of view, that it becomes tiresome keeping track of who's doing what to whom in which time frame. The script, direction, and editing are so sloppy that it's not surprising that this is writer-director Mimouni's only film. The ending is ludicrous. About the only reason for sitting through this turkey is Bellucci, although she isn't given much screen time.

This is a clever story about relationships and a display of three main categories of players in the game of relationships: playboys (Max), manipulative women (Alice) and the fools who may be indeed in love (Lisa, Muriel and Lucien).Max and Alice are very unlikeable and perhaps despicable characters but who are always in control in the game leaving their partners around in the dark. But as the profusely discussed ending tells us, as veteran players as Max and Alice were, they would be happy to part ways anytime they see fit as if the game was just announced to be over and each one of them could not care less to get on with his or her own life and play another game with some other anonymous people when another opportunity presented itself. Lisa, Muriel and Lucien might be the ones who felt like investing something real in a relationship, only not being able to realise that they were the baits in the game and the ultimate losers (as far as what we were shown is concerned....who knows if they are also advance players of some sort in their worlds not shown to us on screen).This is a very fast-paced, delicately crafted and seductively witty story with an enticing execution by the cast. It also deserves some deeper thinking: how much is real in a game of relationship?

Considering this film was launched in 1996, I would have to say it's the French original based on which Wicker Park was made. With a cast of French and American actors, the story seemed peculiarly familiar to me, having seen the American version first. But when the restaurant scene started it all came back to me. If you've already seen Wicker Park, I don't recommend this movie. First because you already know all the plot turns that make the story great and second because - I never thought I would ever say this - Diane Kruger is much better for the part than Monica Bellucci (and this comes from a man who is a big fan of the latter). Furthermore, it is my opinion that Cassel - again, comparing him with Mathew Lillard in Wicker Part - played his part like a stiff. I haven't seen many of his movies, but from those I did see I can safely say he didn't commit to this role. All in all, I give it 5/10 because the story was ruined for me and because the lead actors, though all good ones, did not impress me in this production.