Writer-director Yann Samuell's precariously bold and dark but also lighthearted French hit Love Me if You Dare is about a boy and girl whose lives revolve around challenging each other to more and more outrageous--and sometimes even dangerous--dares. It's a game they play well into adulthood, much to the frustration and chagrin of parents, teachers, coworkers, lovers, spouses, and increasingly, each other; but it's also a game so engrained in their precocious, intellectual personalities and self-identities that neither one is willing to back down and admit the underlying impetus: love. While it's sometimes hard to sympathize with these unnervingly charming characters (played by Guillaume Canet and Marion Cotillard), who have the potential for ruining their own lives and the lives of others, the film keeps us interested in the way these characters desperately, curiously cling to their game as a reliable constant in their lives and a bastion of a certain joie de vivre that, in actual fact, they both lack. And the filmmaker plays to the discomfort he creates with an audacious, unorthodox finale that leaves much to the viewer's imagination. Recommended. (R. Blackwelder)
Love Me if You Dare
Paramount, 95 min., in French w/English subtitles, R, VHS or DVD: $29.99, Oct. 19 Volume 19, Issue 6
Love Me if You Dare
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