À la folie... pas du tout (2002)
Directed by Laetitia Colombani

Film Review

For her directorial debut, Laetitia Colombani presents us with a puzzle, a kind of cinematic jigsaw that initially appears to be quite ingenious, until we get to the end and realise that half of the pieces don't quite fit together.  Colombani is not the first director to employ the narrative device of first telling a story from one perspective, and then going back to the start and telling it again from another.  Lucas Belvaux's Trilogie, released the same year, showed just how well this device can work if used intelligently.

À la folie... pas du tout begins by showing us the heroine's point of view.  What we get is a kind of poor man's parody of Amélie II, with Audrey Tautou robotically replaying the role of the doe-eyed Mademoiselle Poulin which brought her international stardom the year before.  At this stage in the proceedings, we do not yet realise that Tautou's character is deluded, that she lives in a warped fantasy world, and so it is easy to be turned off by the girly whimsy of the mise-en-scène, the trashy dialogue and the almost surreal flights of fancy, especially if you are a lager-loving bloke who likes his films to be somewhat less oestrogen-charged and flowery.

Assuming that you make it to the midway stage, the film suddenly becomes much darker as we see things from the perspective of the object of Tautou's unsolicited attention.  The narrative comes close to falling apart at this point, through weaknesses in the scripting and direction.  That the film continues to hold our attention is due almost entirely to the efforts of Samuel Le Bihan, which inject a shot of conviction that is so evidently missing in the script.  Other characters, by contrast, are just too thinly sketched to be salvageable, and so the talents of Isabelle Carré and Clément Sibony are pretty well wasted.  Interestingly, Carré would play a character very similar to one that Tautou portrays here, in Michel Spinosa's 2007 film Anna M, which tackles the same subject - erotomania - in a much more sombre and believable manner.

If you are in the right frame of mind, À la folie... pas du tout is an easy film to watch - particularly for the Audrey Tautou fans - but it is an empty experience, and one that leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.  The last few scenes are particularly ill-judged and underscore the film's biggest failing, its almost complete lack of humanity.  Anyone looking for a traditional French romantic-comedy should look elsewhere.  It may not appear so until quite near to the end but this is an astoundingly dark film - an almost pathologically grim antidote to the classic rom-com.   Definitely not a film you would want to watch with your beloved on St Valentine's Day - unless you have a craving for a lonesome night on the sofa.

Film Synopsis

Angélique, a twenty year old arts student, falls in love with Loïc, a distinguished heart specialist.  The problem is that he is already married and expects to be a father in the not too distant future.  For Angélique, this is the great love of her life and she cannot understand why Loïc is so distant with her.  Surely he must feel the same way about her?  Angélique's insane passion is to about to turn Loïc's calm, ordered life into a nightmare...