Movie review - Love Me If You Dare/Jeux d'Enfants

Reading the comments for this film on IMDB, Jeux d'Enfants/Love Me If You Dare seems to be a film you either love or hate. I first saw this a few years ago and I loved it! Remembering this, I recently purchased it on DVD and watched it again with a more critical eye.

Julien and Sophie are outcasts from the other kids at school - Sophie because she's Polish and her poor socio-economic background, Julien is psychologically outcast because his mother has cancer. On the day she finds out she's dying, Julien's mother gives him a carousel box, which he subsequently gives to Sophie on condition he can have it back sometimes. Offended, Sophie tells Julien he'll have to do something to get it back, starting the game of dare. The kids use the game to escape the real world and one-up each other, but as they grow older Julien (Guillaume Canet) and Sophie's (Marion Cotillard) games become darker until it becomes the most important thing in their lives.

I can understand why a lot of people hate this film. For one, the film goes into ImaginationLand quite a bit and you have to decide which are the *real* events. There's even an ambiguous ending - I know which one I think is the real one but Laulita for one begs to differ! Secondly, I think this movie is mistakenly labelled a romantic comedy. It has romantic elements and bits of it are funny, but it's more about growing up and facing life's responsibilities rather than a fluffy 27Dresses-esque confection. And of course there are the central characters. Sophie and Julien aren't nice people - they do some pretty mean things to people and each other in the course of their game. Hell, Julien even describes it in voice over as a *perversion* and in one of the definitely imagined sequences, Sophie dares him to kidnap and kill someone - which he does! No siree, this is no cuddly feelgood Amelie.

The acting is what gets me to overlook the absolutely asshole-ish and sociopathic tendencies of the two main characters. Canet and Cotillard are excellent in showing the gamut of emotions the two have towards each other - their adolescent glee and attraction turning to fear, bitterness and hatred until their final...er...glorious reunion. In particular is a key sequence of scenes where we see *SPOILERS* Sophie's rehearsal to tell him she loves him but he rebuffs her to study for exams followed by Julien's attempt to tell her he loves her, their reunion at the restaurant when he tells her he's marrying someone else to fulfill her dare that he could never do something to hurt her (it cuts like a knife and you see it all on Cotillard's face), and his devastation when she calls in the dare that he say *No* at his own wedding. *END SPOILER*. You can see on their reactions to the havoc they wreak on each other and it doesn't make for comfortable viewing. I'm not surprised to read that Cotillard and Canet are now partners!

So yes, Jeux d'Enfants is a type of romance. A romance between two people, clearly soulmates, yet so insecure that they'd rather cling to a bizarre, masochistic game than reveal their vulnerabilities. Or is it because they do know each others' weaknesses that these two are perfect for each other? Either way, I think it's a very honest story that most people don't really want to see when they want 'romance'. To steal a line from someone on IMDB: This film is AMELIE meets FIGHT CLUB...this is definitely NOT a chic-flick. It is a film about love, but it shows all the shades of grey and hurt that we don't think of in the pursuit of happily ever after.

8/10

Also, the ending credits featured this great remix of La Vie en Rose by Zazie.

The subs are in Spanish if anyone wants to learn these languages in parallel.