Laetitia Colombani’s He Loves Me, He Loves Not casts French sugarplum fairy Audrey Toutou as Angélique, a Parisian art student uncomfortably hung up on a married cardiologist. When the doctor breaks her heart, Angélique decides that she isn’t going to let him destroy her. This image-driven trifle exists for the sole purpose of cataloging what would happen if Amélie Poulin of Montmarte were to pull a Glenn Close. The plot of the film is vintage Fatal Attraction, but the story is told twice and tie-dyed with an assortment of primary colors so as to appeal to the Run Lola Run generation. Since the international success of the Tom Tykwer film, this multi-story gimmick has been abused and exhausted with no foreseeable end in sight (Maelstrom, Happenstance, 13 Conversations About One Thing, et al). In showing the events of the film from two different angles and casting Toutou in the lead role, Colombani seems to want to deconstruct the actress’s cutie-pie image for those who think she’s all peaches and cream. No matter how bright the colors or how many exclamation points follow each and every one of the film’s metaphors (heart charts, wilting bonsai trees and EKG paintings), the material is still a good 20 years to late. In the end, the pointlessness of this exercise is surpassed only by its rank misogyny.
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