Je vous trouve très beau

I watched this film on an international flight from Frankfurt to Charlotte. Despite the fact that it was in French with English subtitles, I chose it from among the other tacky Hollywood choices of film and sitcoms that were available on the in-flight entertainment system.

I have to disagree with the prior reviewer who said, "The plot is simple but interesting, based on two facts: - the difficulty for French farmers to find spouses willing to settle in a farm; - the difficulty for young Romanians to get a decent job in their own country".

These situations only provided the context for the film. The true basis for this film is a beautiful and entertaining story of loving after loss, and the strength of human character...peppered with a clever and humorous examination of the differences in the way men and women think (which seems to be universal regardless of culture).

As I returned home from 2 wonderful weeks in Europe, the French dialogue and beautiful scenery took me on a mental journey that allowed me to forget for a couple of hours more - the shallowness and wastefulness of American culture.

This film is not just worth watching...if you care at all about diversity and you enjoy celebrating the full spectrum of human emotions, it's worth adding to your collection.

I can't rate this film because I saw only about the first half of it on a flight back from Paris. What I saw I loved.

Comedy doesn't travel well. I'm an American, dyed in the wool, and I normally find French comedy annoying--self-conscious and stilted. This movie, however, is funny, and I give most of the credit to Michel Blanc. He is subtly hilarious as the single-minded rube trying to replace his dead wife-cum-farmhand-cum-cook-cum-housekeeper the way you or I might try to replace a pair of comfortable old shoes with new ones. He just can't make the clerk understand.

I like hard comedy--vicious satire, outrageous parody, clever wordplay--and this movie is none of those. It could hardly be more conventional. The plot is that of a TV sitcom episode, and the script is studied and tame. Still, I laughed out loud every few minutes, and taking into account jet lag and nicotine deprivation, that's saying something.

I hadn't expect to like this movie. It deals with things from my country I desperately wanted to escape from - lack of money, desperation, the small price a woman can ask for herself. And I hadn't really liked a Romanian movie eversince I was a child and I was watching silly communist movies. But this movie had good credentials and people close to me had enjoyed it, so when I had the chance I watched it, first with prejudiced disgust, then with interest and at the end with emotion. It is a lovely movie, about not so lovely people that in the end turn out to be just fabulous. It is the first movie about ugly Romania that I actually enjoyed watching. I am grateful for that.

This film will probably not be remembered in 10 years but it does not matter as it's not meant to be a 7th art masterpiece. The plot is simple but interesting, based on two facts: - the difficulty for French farmers to find spouses willing to settle in a farm; - the difficulty for young Romanians to get a decent job in their own country;

A market-oriented solution would be to bring together the offer and the demand. And it's exactly what the dating company is doing. The problem is that human beings, unlike goods, have feelings: - it's hard for a French farmer to understand a girl from Romania; - it's hard for a Romanian girl to leave her country and her past behind.

It's a nice reminder to those criticizing immigrants that it's always a last-resort and heart-breaking solution to move away from home in search for better conditions.

Two great actors: Michel Blanc and Medeea Constantinescu.

Last but not least, life in Romania is far from being as dull as the film pretends.

This is a nice romantic comedy about a French farmer who needs a wife (or cheap labourer) to run his farm, and who gets hitched to a young Romanian girl who needs money to raise her daughter.

The big problem with this movie is that the girl is tragically miscast. She is played by a talented young actress, who unfortunately can't patch over the fact that she is so painfully clearly out of her love interest's league. She's one of those surreally waifish girls the French adore so much. It's a case of the beauty and the beast, and it just doesn't hold water. Apart from that, a good movie. Until the farmer's visit to Romania to pick up his wife, it's a hilarious comedy, after that it's a complex (if implausible), and surprisingly intriguing, love story.

Michel Blanc is brilliant in a very difficult role. He's at the same time pompous and boyish, and would be the ideal match for an unlikely love story.

The unsung star of this movie is the entremetteuse, Eva Darlan. She is vivacious, beautiful and terribly funny. The movie loses a lot when she drops out of the plot. I think she would have been a much better, and not least much more credible, Elena.

Another problem with this movie is that they picked Romania as the rent-a-bride's country of origin. Fifteen years ago this would have been believable. Nowadays everybody knows that Romania isn't so bad as to make pretty girls so desperate to leave it that they'd gladly hitch up to a middle-aged French hillbilly. I don't understand why the writer didn't pick a more exotic and desperate country, Albania maybe or Ossietia or whatever.

If you're looking for humour and don't mind a hefty dollop of implausible romance, this is your movie.