Un homme à la hauteur

First the long review from the other is not fair. It sounds like someone who admits being shorter is an issue. So can be being taller than the average. We are dealing with an Oscar winner and some really clever movie tricks and set design etc that is what is to appreciated also and the creativity and fun to show it. I don't want to spoil it but I find it has a general positive attitude. It teaches us to appreciate what's between the two ears and maybe legs also as it often does not match the rest of the body automatically. I have met several people who needed injections to grow, very costly treatments that maybe could have been approached in the movie also. See it and make up your own opinion.

This is the classic French romcom with a twist. A dashing architect and a big girl lawyer fall in love with each other. Who wouldn't, they've got everything going for them, so much so that it's sheer willpower that keeps them from falling heels over head in love with themselves. And every man should take a few pointers from Alexandre how to properly woo a woman. The only hitch is that this French lover stands barely 1,40 m tall. Although this predicament is obvious from the start, and I felt a bit nauseous about how truly wonderful Alexandre is (he's great at anything), the movie still provides a lot of momentum and keeps the story going. It's especially fun to watch how they make the 1,82 m tall actor Jean Dujardin appear to be only 1,36 m tall by a number of old school tricks (his counterpart Diane (Virginie Efira) standing on a box, or Jean Dujardin kneeling) and CGI (green screen).

You'll search far and wide to find a positive review of this film but you have found one here. Like every romantic farce, Up For Love (2016) is a comedy based on situational humour rather than dialogue or action. It's a genre that shows people revealing themselves by how they react to the unexpected and this one is funny and sad and loaded with charm.

The plot line is simple: a beautiful lawyer loses her phone and a caller offers to return it if she will dine with him. Freshly divorced Diane (Virginie Efira) is trying to move on and is vulnerable to the smooth-talking Alexandre (Jean Dujardin). When they first meet she is stunned to find that the high-profile architect is 4 foot 6 inches tall. It is a hilarious scene of studied avoidance and shifting glances. But they hit it off and start dating, and each situation into which Diane introduces Alexandre is a farcical study of how people react to his diminutive stature. Throughout it all, Alexandre endures the stares and jibes with good-humoured acceptance despite the callous insensitivity of people towards those who are different.

There is an unmistakable feeling of guilt in laughing at how Alexandre copes with everyday moments in his life, like needing to jump up into a normal size chair and see his dangling feet not reach the floor. But that is the whole point: how would we react in the situation? Dujardin is a pin-up star of French cinema and he plays here with irrepressible warmth and forbearance despite his short straw in life. Efira is his perfect match and plays middle-class embarrassment to perfection. Critics have complained that the digital effects to down-size Dujardin are clumsy. It is true that if you look for it, you can notice some between-scene differences in scale and perspective that slightly alters his size in relation to the frame. Just ignore it. The whole of cinema involves suspension of disbelief and this story has more than enough going for it to be spoilt by minor hiccups with experimental technology.

Love stories between mismatched souls have always been the lifeblood of romantic comedy, so in one sense Up For Love is just another take on an ancient theme. If your glass is always half empty, then this film is a flawed cliché. For others, it is a delightful romance that doubles as a serious essay on dealing with difference. It is heart-warming and awkward, original and familiar, all at the same time.

If a short guy could fall for a taller woman, why tall woman could not fall for a short guy, as long as he's romantic, with strong sense of humor, a big heart, a charmer in his own way and his height? But of course, the short guy who falls for a tall beautiful woman, his first and must have requirement is, well, he must be rich, not just rich, but must be very rich, and social status must also quite recognizable to the general public. That, is the only way to make the tall beauty to at least allow you come near. Without enough dough, there's no way to approach a beautiful tall woman. Tom Cruise, Keith Urban, Sylvester Stallone, many short guys got no difficulty to make women fall for him in the first place, their later divorces or separations got nothing to do with their natural heights; there were private personal reasons caused the irrevocable and un-salvageable situations, but the heights of the men or husbands would not be the major reason.

I noticed a reviewer, ElMaruecan8231, who wrote a review on December 2017 and hatefully attack this movie that he admitted he wrote his review but actually didn't even bother to watch. And he slandered this movie and swear to boycott it. I don't know what's wrong with this guy. It seems that he got the same problems as Donald Trump, so obnoxious and so arrogantly self-righteous and self-important to attack a movie that he didn't even actually see it. This movie is as the "Fake News" to POTUS. A reviewer so pompously to attack a movie he didn't even watch is a new phase that imdb might have to deal with; it's no better than those fake reviews.

This movie is fun and well made. Jean Dujardin is a genius level actor and an irresistible charmer. I just don't know how the movie makers made him look so short all the way through, put him in one of the "Gulliver's Travels" situation - into a land of giants. Virginie Efira, what a lovely beauty and likable actor. If there's only one guy, a shorty, fell for her, the world must be deadly wrong.

Digital effects and camera tricks have come a far way. Someone most definitely took a page out of the LotR and Hobbit movies on how to shoot a normal sized person with others, for the prior to appear like a small person. And it's nice to see someone as charismatic as Dujardin struggling because of his size. You see it does matter after all - or maybe it doesn't? The movie will provide the answer.

Public perspective may not be everything, but it's not shallow if you do care about the people around you and what you look like. Of course it is way more important to feel good about yourself in the first place. It that isn't the case, you are not even halfway there. It's nicely build up and while we go through the (expected) motions, we can still have fun watching this. Not a great movie, but a nice one ...