He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not

He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not
Original Title: À la folie… pas du tout
Directed by: Laetitia Colombani, France, 2002
Thriller / Drama 92min
Distributed by: Scanbox Entertainment

Story:
Young, pretty Angelique [Audrey Tautou] finds herself being taunted by her lover Loïc [Samuel Le Bihan]. But when he starts ignoring her Angelique's world starts falling apart, or is it his world?

Me:
An odd little movie that after a quite dull first third takes a sudden unexpected twist, pulls you in and becomes really very interresting. The first third of the movie tells Angelique’s tale of torment as she pines for the final proof that Loïc loves her, who ironically is a heart specialist too. Angelique impatiently waits for Loïc to leave his pregnant wife and go to Florence for a romantic weekend with her… But her wait is long, and painful. The unique twist to this movie is that nothing is what it seems to be, and it’s done in a very creative way after the first third is completed. Obviously there isn’t an affair between Angelique and Loïc, it’s all in her head, which is what we learn as the second third unfolds and we see how Loïc in fact the one being tormented by Angelique and her severe case of erotomania. À la folie… is surprising, in many ways both because it gets off to such a slow start, ad then that it takes such a completely different road after the first third. The final part is all about the two lives of Angelique and Loïc as they patch their now shattered lives together again. There is a twist ending too, not a surprise but a small twist that you should see coming, but the way that Colombani pulls it off is brilliant. A very good debut feature that definitely can be highly recommended and for certain viewed again.

Image:
1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen. Wonderful colours and watch the colour scheme alter as we go through the movie! Nice details there.

Audio:
French Audio, 5.1 Dolby Digital and 2.0 Dolby Digital. Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish Subtitles are optional.

Extras:
Quite a few for this little oddity, a few deleted scenes, three alternative endings, which you quickly understand why they didn’t use them, Cast Biographies, Production notes and a commentary track by the director Laetitia Colombani. Finally the theatrical trailer and a few promos for other titles on Scanbox.