User Reviews

When you see a romantic comedy especially when it is a "farce", you have to be able to suspend your expectation for realism and just enjoy the film. One of us was able to do that right away and the other took a little longer to give into the premise. Romain Duris is Alex the young, suave, bearded Frenchman ( the film is in French with subtitles ) who works with his sister and her husband in a unique business. A client who believes that a particular woman should not be romantically involved with her boyfriend or fiancée hires them. This team will research this woman and determine her special likes and dislikes. They will then arrange a scenario where Alex will happen to meet her, charm her and when she falls in love with him, he will not be emotionally available but she will realize that she should not be with her current boyfriend. The job is completed and the con team gets paid. They often use high tech to set up their ruses. It should be noted that Alex has scruples in that he will never accept a job unless he really believes the girl shouldn't be with her current lover. It is an interesting premise and the trio of screenwriters and the direction of Pascal Chaumeil creates some very clever and funny scenes. Needless to say, things don't go according to schedule on one of these capers when Juliette played by Vanessa Paradis is the target of their latest job. The conclusion is a little reminiscent of the ending of The Graduate You will have to decide if you believe that she is now falling in love with the perfect man for her that Alex has created or does she now see his true love for her which she believes she also has for him? One of the screenwriters of the movie is a Harvard educated, AFI graduate Jeremy Doner who obviously has a good feel for the French sensibilities of love and humor. He was a guest at the screening we attended and told us that this film was one of the most financially successful films to be shown in France in the last several years but there usually can only be limited expectations for a foreign movie with subtitles in the United States. Perhaps for this reason, he is currently working on an American English version of this story which has been set for production in the near future. A romantic comedy, even one that is a farce usually ends with a warm feel good sense about the ultimate relationship of the lovers. ( Think Tracy and Hepburn) . The fact that Juliette's feelings for Alex were based on the con job pulled off by Alex may take away a bit from the audience's feeling good about the lovers as the movie concludes. Perhaps they can fine tune the ending of the English version so there is no doubt that they are right for each other.

First of all, I loved the actors. Romain Duris is one of my favorite. He manages to conceal some of the weaknesses of a plot, if there is any, in every film he stars in. His best parts so far have been in "L'auberge espagnole", "Le poupées russes", "De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté", "Le péril jeune". In this new film, you can see also the brilliant acting of Vanessa Paradis. You certainly know her as the wife of the actor Johnny Depp ; you will find out she is also a very good actress.

The plot is the main thing that bothered me. There is no explanation in the film as to the reason this rich businessman hires the heart-breaking team. After all, I doubt many women would turn down the proposal of the handsome and generous man the main woman character is supposed to marry. To give you a picture : He owns a plane, he gets food to beggars in the street, he is involved in humanitarian aid to Africa. His only real flaw is that he's not there ! Sometimes the characters may seem quite unsophisticated. The ending is exactly what you can expect from love movies : She runs away from the wedding, they get together, he confesses he lied to her, but she forgives him and the wind up kissing. Nothing unusual, different, or exciting. These kind of scenes can really make the whole film look silly and corny to an unforgiving audience.

Nevertheless, I encourage you to go see this movie. Most of the time, it's great fun, and after all, you may not be bothered by the little flaws in the plot that I mentioned. And there is this very funny Belgian guy who is supposed to monitor the whole operation, and provide all kinds of material to the professional seducer.

At first I was really enjoying this for what it was. The premise of being hired to get girls to break up with their fiancé's was really fun for a rom-com and there were some genuine laughs. But the film was severely lacking in character development, and I don't think I've ever seen a rom-com where the leading man was so much more unlikeable than "the other guy". I would have been okay with all this if the girl ended up with her original boyfriend, but of course they force the predicable choice on you which ends up being so unsatisfying because there was nothing throughout the movie to really justify it. It brought the film from maybe 6 or 7 stars down to 3 for me it was that bad, because it just showed the filmmakers had no idea what they were doing.

1) They oversold the girls original relationship way too much... It was flat out said they had never seen a couple more in love and that he was the perfect boyfriend and the "heartbreak team" were only breaking them up because they needed money. Not a great start, but at least at this time time there was still room to fix it by revealing actual flaws in the boyfriend or actually having her end up with him, neither of which happened unfortunately.

2) They didn't give the other guy ANY flaws. His only problem were his pretentious parents for making the girl feel like crap when they were eating, but I felt just as bad for him in that scene because he was clearly embarrassed by them and if anything he ended up having the most noble moment of the film by standing up for his fiancé to their faces. The whole "he was safe" and "the other guy is exciting" argument really wasn't established either... I mean he was willing to hop on a jet and get married in Vegas until the main guy interfered by spewing lies.

3) The only background we get of the girl is she was once a groupie that caused her to miss her mom's funeral... Umm, I think the writers were confused. This had the opposite effect of what it should have had. They should have had her say that the time was the most fun she had in her life but she ended up getting hurt or something and was too afraid to ever go back so she settled for her new boyfriend because he was "safe" or whatever... Don't tell me she was an irresponsible bitch that skipped her mom's funeral because she was too busy being a whore. That just makes me think going for the "exciting" guy will lead her back down a path of similarly poor and selfish decisions.

4) If the girl didn't seem like a bitch yet, by the runaway scene it should be clear. She doesn't say I'm sorry? She doesn't explain to her fiancé why she's going to leave him at the altar? Hell, she didn't even look at him, she gave this creepy smirk and bolted while he was left standing there alone for his cruel parents to just stare at him with judgment... I couldn't have felt sorrier for him.

5) And to add insult to injury, they try to plug in a budding relationship for this great but now abandoned guy by pairing him with the girl's best friend that has been established as a crazy nympho that will marry him for his money and cheat on him as soon as she can. What were the writers thinking? Is there some cute irony there I am missing? Was it just supposed to be funny to kick a man when he's down? Well it wasn't.

Really such an unsatisfying that exposed all of the movie's flaws and ruined what could have been a charming romantic comedy.

It is a French film - some things UK and US audiences won't like, because of the new PC stereotypes demanded by so-called 'feminists' who spend hours devouring the latest about Jen, Cheryl and Kerry etc. So this film shows an arrogant, stubbled, big nosed French guy (rather than white toothed, air brushed airhead) taking on jobs where he has to break up couples (although he has some scruples about breaking up real lovers!) with his sister and brother-in-law. His impossible target is the gap toothed Vanessa Paradis(albeit Mrs Depp), who is in love with the stereotypical English stiff (that will be in the US version, no doubt!). He tries all he can, pretending to love Wham! and 'Dirty Dancing' (good impression of Swayze on the dance floor) but she holds off forcing ever more complicated plays by the 'hero.' So the story rolls on with the girl not suspecting anything (the US version will have to have a much feistier and knowing heroine, of course). Her best friend cannot walk along without flashing a breast (cut from US version along with the description of her as a nympho!) and is knocked out twice by the brother-in-law with a frying pan (senseless violence against women, certainly not!). You get the picture, different culture, different mores on screen, but quite amusing as a farce and romcom. The leads do not really spark enough, but, hey, after limp efforts over many years by the likes of Aniston and Lopez in absolute rubbish, they have something going on screen! The secondary characters get a chance without overacting, and it is fun. Yes, a screwball comedy that Hollywood used to be able to make, but cannot anymore, except through louche rubbish from Carell et al. Let's all give a cheer for the French for showing UK how to make a comedy without too much post-modernist, ironic baggage hanging on to it!

Spoiler warning...

Go to see this and you will watch a film where: - the male lead is manipulative, a lie and a cheat, and at no point demonstrates his own real virtues; - the female lead is self-absorbed, hates her father because she herself missed her own mother's funeral (I didn't get that bit either), jilts the English fiancé she has been madly in love with for three years with no justification, and runs off to live with a man who has wooed her with lies and whom she knows absolutely nothing about; - the fiancé accepts his wife's misdemeanours on the night before their wedding (under his nose) with no questions asked, and is the only innocently-motivated person in the whole film, yet is the only character who is made to suffer; - and the father-of-the-bride who encourages his daughter to drop her fiancé because he will be stable and consistent and won't bring danger into her life.

I'm struggling really hard to find an ounce of intelligence, integrity, hope or romance in any of this. The humour was childish, and the concept disturbing and nauseating.

Alternative strap-line: "Even vile egotists have the right to destroy lives and fall in lust."

Throwing a maimed dove down a sand dune, then announcing "It won't fly", was not funny. Concussing a woman into unconsciousness multiple times with a metal pot, no matter how disgustingly she was behaving, was not funny. The premise? A 3-person "team" of French people make their money by breaking up the marriages of women too stupid to know they are actually unhappy. One of the team is a hulking, creepy, too- loud peeping-tom half-wit slob (the main character should have broken up HIS marriage) braying into the camera every other scene-- what in heaven's name are people finding entertaining about this dud?? The movie features a two very underweight (in more ways than one) French people who have absolutely no chemistry. I'd rather watch water boil. These two leads are incredibly, painfully, bony! When they embraced, they must have rattled. And the teeth! Good lord, the teeth. Though it was nice to see the ritzy interiors of the tony Monte Carlo hotels, but baby, that was it. Other than a few sunsets over the Riviera, this movie was complete waste of time. Silly, if not stupid. If only IMDb allowed us to award negative-stars. That's the only way this movie would see 10 of anything.