L'Amour ouf

Gilles Lellouche's near 3-hour epic crime romance adventure is quite ambitious. For Lelouche to explore some interesting themes about crime, angsty, love, and the extremely energetic tone, it's an accomplishment of French cinema in this current times.

Lellouche does offer some great aspects about it's concept. The strong performances, beautiful colorful production, tone, and camerawork really helps establish the environment, tone and setting. Unfortunately, what prevents it from being an epic masterpiece is the writing and structure. Oftentimes, Lellouche applies too much into the narrative. It's clear what the story is wanting to express and there are some pretty good aspects about it. But with a narrative that feels unnecessary stretched out and having characters that don't feel too emotionally connectable doesn't do much service to what Lellouche would have wanted.

I do appreciate some of the ambitious take Lellouche does. The fact he was able to capture the time period perfectly and have a good pacing does show the passion. But it's style over substance moments ends up over staying it's welcome. Realistically, this movie didn't have to be near 3-hours.

Genuinely I expected a lot from this movie for 3 months and honestly I'm feel very disappointed from the script cause it's very bad and boring you don't expecting finally and type of story explain and happen like that cause there was a very good pitch and great potential in order to get one best story love of cinema industry, too bad !

First to all the pitch of the script it's great, you got all to making a such good story to tolling to an audience but unfortunately the way of manage the script played bad by screenwriters... cause the old period who explain the childhood it's nice but too long and you feel boring cause so many things happened and it' very useful to show and explain like 30 minutes to show the past will be great but 1 h and 15 minutes it's too long !!!

You expecting the movie will be relaunch when you see the old children's on adult people well.. note nothing move everything it's too slow, not so much action, then the main character could do a redemption about his old trouble, to do a revenge against all people who betrayed him but he didn't ... I mean that the story will be better with ideas and it's so disappointed that the dramatic scene was not enough present very bad cause it will be great story !!!

And about the script the two mains actors that we love, play only 20 minutes together, it's not enough for a movie very long of 2 h 40 minutes and too bad cause we expected anymore moments with these two actors, very bad point ...

The directing, soundtrack, playing lights and colors form the crew it's only the good points of the movie with also the nice acting from all the cast but for me the very bad points it's the script very slow and too long that it killed the movie... cause an alternative of some others ideas will be great but it didn't happened...

Thank you Gilles Lelouche for your great directing but your screenwriters and the different choices did by them killed the movie even if this story from a book and you can't to create the ideas that you want ...

Original scenario. Lellouch did really great with this movie, one of the best scenario and movie of the year. Great Nostalgie starting from the opening font style. Picture, music, image all other the movie is a great memory of the 80s and 90s.

The "kids" are playing very well, looking forward new movies, they are to become great actors. I was a bit afraid of Exarchopoulos as usually I don't really like her but she does pretty well on her scenes which are pretty made for her. Chabat is obviously great as the GOAT he is, i remind me of Didier at the start for thise who know, you'll know. Civil is perfect in the role, this dark style fits him very well.

The movie is about 3 hours long with some mediocre acting here and there (im talking about Malaury and Malik here, he at least has some interesting and entertaining scenes and actually resembles the acting done by his older self) but besides that the cinematography, done by Laurent Tangy, the music selection the story, the shocking scenes, the charm and warmth of certain scenes, the atmosphere, honestly make this movie a special and unique experience, if you have a significant other go watch it together, it ups the experience a whole lot more. The fact that i saw this movie with my girlfriend really increased the experience.

If my kid read this review she would certainly kill me. Jokes apart, for French teenagers, "L'amour ouf" (Breaking Hearts) is indeed an upcoming cult film which could be compared to "La Boum" (The Party - 1980- with Sophie Marceau).

The gangster part and the story of revenge in the background can't mislead us: it's first and foremost a love story, a typical teenage film with all the ingredients it usually features : romance, heartbreaks and struggle for love.

For sure, the director has put a lot of himself in it (music, cinema references, memories of intimate scenes, telephone booth's souvenirs...). This being said, it does not stand out for its originality yet, a little bit for his style. However, it's a film which does not withstand an adult's critic especially when it comes to analyse the verisimilitude of its plot and the good (or bad) taste of its filming .

I don't want to lash out at Gilles Lellouch who is a fantastic actor, who looks like a humble and good person, and who is, after all, a decent director as "Le Grand Bain" (Sink or Swim), his previous film prooved us. "Breaking Hearts" on the other hand, is way more personal, but way less funny than his previous film and way more pompous. Don't get me wrong. It's entertaining but it never ever approaches a cult or a very good film as the director inteneded to. It becomse a problem because you can clearly tell that the director wanted it to be something big, you can clearly tell he has put a lot of effects, a lot of money for something too pompous to be good. Too much for the style, too less for the content and the credibility of his story.

Gilles Lellouch is very "heavy-handed" when it comes to gangster scenes, bunch of friends' scenes and love scenes. I personnaly think he has litterally copied some scenes from La Haine (Hatred), Dirty Dancing or West Side Story. And the same thing happens when it comes to dialogs (the sentences, the phrases used are very...very written). At the end, you may reckon it does not reach the standard of a cult movie, and clearly never ever approach a master-piece . You might even wonder if it was really worth 32 billion budget.

Despite being a cultural phenomenon here in France from which tik tok and social networks have cashed in, "Breaking Hearts" remains an average film done with heavy manners, heavy effects and classic tools (insisting 90's music, close-up and travelling).

In spite of the astonishing cast and the very expensive effects, something does not work. I think the director relies too much on the weight of his stars, the weights of his words (the very written dialogs that most of the time fall short) and too less on the power of the story or the input of supporting roles. Apart from Alain Chabat and his touching role as a widow father, the supporting roles are not to be remembered (and it has nothing to do with their performance because Vincent Lacoste for instance is brilliant as the "vilain"). THe supporting roles are most of the time irrelevant to the story, and quite trivial. Quite a pity .

At the end, you may end up fed up with all these cichés as if Gilles Lellouch intented to give his audience what it was expecting.

In addition to this overdose of music, there is what I would call a very personal depiction of the 80's-90's , or even an americanization of the 80's-90's which seem cool (it's fun to be brought back to theses memories with the recording tape and fake phone calls), but growing up in a small town in France in the 90's was not like the film pictures (bunch of black friends, pupils taking an americanized bus to go to school and wait on car's roofs). I am afraid to say that I don't believe it. It's fake. The family relationships are manichean as well (a beaten child stopps school and no one says nothing to him), the adventure scenes are very gendered (the girls hold their nose when they dive whereas the boys make a backflip), and basically everything from beginning to end is very classic (the bad kid climbs up on old cars and beats up adults despite being weak and skinny).

The discovery of the rising stars Mallory Wanecque and Malik Frikah could make you forget all this cliché mania for a while. In fact, the first act is quite brilliant. This incandescent love is very well pictured in a classic style though. You expect a beautiful ending to it (you can't wait to see Adèle Exarchopoulos and François Civil from whom you expect to bring something new, more modern, after 12 years of gap in the plot).

The problem is that it is stricly the contrary that happens. François Civil and Adèle Exachopoulos bring NOTHING new, their performances are almost held back... with less intensity than their younger counterparts.

The story lacks sense in the second part of the film. Besides the megalomania of the director is over represented to emphasize the love, the fate and the beauty of the main characters. Gilles Lellouch makes long (too long) scenes focusing on their faces. Adèle Exachopoulos's first scene (that happens after one hour of film) says it all: dancing on a trendy night club dance floor by moving her head with sensuality and touching her untied hair.

Clichés, solid cinema references, and a great soundtrack, this is what this film is made of.

All in all it looks like the perfect recipe for teenagers, a cheesy gift offered to them with no limit over the budget and two fantastic picks (that's for sure): (way better than the famous stars of this film !): Mallory Wanecque and Malik Frikah. Hats off for their two performances.