Saturday, December 1, 2012

2. I Do (Prête-moi ta main)

If there is one thing I love about French movies, it's how much they can get away with just for being French.  You can take the Godard approach and have sound randomly cutting in and out throughout the whole movie.  Or maybe just the obscure and have happy songs being sung about falling in love with a man who has aids.  Or maybe they'll just have their love last forever by being buried alive in a cement pit.  It all works in my book.  But I Do actually seems to be a very tame French film.  In fact, it could have easily been American.  I feel foreign films are tricky when it comes to American viewers because a lot of things just get lost in translation.  Humor being one of them.  But there were times in this movie when I actually did L-O-L (annnnd I'm a loser).

The story is about Luis Costa (Alain Chabat). Luis is the only boy in a house full of women. That's right I said boy. A 43 year old boy. Well, I guess he is more like a man-child. He has all of his five sisters and mother take care of him. Washing his clothes, making his meals, etc. One day his sister decides she has had enough and gets all the other sisters, and mother, on her side. They decide he needs to find a wife so they don't have to take care of him anymore. And thus begins the start of an awkward dating montage. Suddenly he figures out a scam for his family to stop pressuring him to get married so he can continue living the single life. All he needs to do is pay a girl to pretend to be his fiance, plan a wedding, and then get left at the alter.

Ummm... Hello!! Do you know how expensive that plan is going to be?!?! Let alone time consuming. But, whatever it's not my life. Also, how dumb is it to find your brother/son a bride just so you don't have to do his laundry anymore. Wouldn't you be more concerned about him not being lonely in his old age? Whatever. That really is my biggest complaint about the whole movie.

Getting back to the plot. He meets his best friend's sister, Emma (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Emma is a free spirited feminist trying to adopt a baby. She agrees to go along with his scheme in order to get enough money to adopt. Everything is going to according to plan. Luis family loves Emma and can't wait for them to get married. But during the wedding planning with the future in-laws, Emma runs into her adoption agent. Now things get a little confusing when it comes to her adoption paperwork. The wedding finally approaches after roughly thirty minutes into the movie (where is all the build up??). When Emma doesn't show, one of Luis's sister claims it is because he cheated on her. Chaos ensues and Luis's mother ends up having a stroke and when she is in the hospital is only asking for Emma.

Well, shit. Luis devices another plan. This time he brings back Emma, but she turns into a "bitch" and has to get the whole family to hate her. Emma reluctantly agrees and insists to make their plan believable she moves in with him. Let me back track for a moment. The reason that Emma agrees is because of the adoption paperwork. The agent doesn't understand if Emma is getting married or not and says it looks bad for the paperwork. Thus making Emma say that they are getting married once his mother gets better. They move in together and although things are rough at first, they soon seem to get along quite well.

I don't want to go to much further into the story for fear of ruining or setting up the ending too much. After all, it is a French film so it doesn't have to be a happy ending. But I did enjoy watching it. I thought it had very relatable themes. I'm only 24 and have already been feeling the pressure from my family to settle down. Ick. Plus you have the whole traditional woman vs. the feminist character (who is a great female character). They might not of had great chemistry where you wanted to shout at the TV for them to kiss already but it was a more believable less cinematic build up. So I would recommend this movie. Unless you hate reading. Then don't even bother.

Rating: *** 





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