“He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not” – Nathan’s Movie Challenge, Week 15
“We all dream of a great love affair. I just dreamt a bit harder.”
Good idea; so-so execution. I can’t really go into specifics about the film without essentially spoiling the whole thing, so it makes writing about it difficult.
What I can say is while the storytelling mechanism is clever, it’s crippled by its super-flat, overly lit appearance, and lackluster acting.
The music in this is incredulously awful, too – cheap sounding and completely overblown for the scenes they were meant to be underscoring.
It’s hard to like even the generally infinitely likeable Audrey Tautou, or her surrounding characters. Everyone’s deplorable or pathetic. Even the ending is unsatisfactory, because everything will just happen again the same way or worse.
I see why it was recommended to me, as I do enjoy Amélie and mindbenders – but this felt too much like a French film major’s senior project.
He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not was at the time of this review at #4774 on my Flickchart list of shame (ranked #5936 among the best movies of all time). Here’s how it entered my chart:
He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not vs. Patriot Games
Good ol’ Jack Ryan. Patriot Games is still the best of Tom Clancy’s stories on film. It beats He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not.
He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not vs. Stir of Echoes
A weird supernatural-ish thriller with Kevin Bacon. Not great, but a better film than He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not.
He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not vs. Charlotte’s Web
I think I prefer the 70s animated version, but the live-action (with talking animals) version’s not bad. It’s no Babe, though it is well crafted – certainly more than He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not.
He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not vs. Jaws: The Revenge
Yeah, the fourth Jaws movie is incredibly awful. He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not will win this time.
He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not vs. Side Effects
The main reason Side Effects isn’t particularly well ranked for me is because how very dark and twisted it all is. It is a bit Hitchcockian, and it does put you in the mood of its characters well. It’ll beat He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not.
He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not vs. Orange County
Orange County always felt like a pale imitation of films like Garden State. Quirkier-than-thou. I do like Colin Hanks, though. It’ll win the matchup.
He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not vs. Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth
Not even a contest.
He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not vs. Human Nature
Human Nature is super weird (it was director Michel Gondry’s first feature film, after all), and loses its way many times before its end, but Rhys Ifans is stellar despite the film he’s thrown into. It’ll beat He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not.
He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not vs. The Flintstones
Not a fan of The Flintstones. At all.
He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not vs. Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
Maybe I’m missing the appeal beyond the obvious physical features of Russ Meyer’s actresses, but it just seemed MST3K-level bad to me. He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not wins.
He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not is now ranked #1293 out of 1390 movies on my Best Movies of All-Time chart.
It’s now my 62nd highest ranked Psychological Thriller and my new #49 of 2002.
Next up are The Butterfly Effect and Swingers. In the meantime, check out the other films I’ve ranked during the challenge.