L'amour ouf

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.

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.

The first part, with the kids, is pretty good. The film should have ended there for the sake of audience. And Gilles Lellouche would have directed one of the best French teenage romances of the decade.

The rest of the movie, the second act, is horrible. The actors François Civil and Adèle Exarchopoulos lack chemistry together, their acting in this movie are bland and without compromise. I suspect both actors should start rethinking their own careers in French cinema once the two newcomers Mallory Wanecque and Malik Frikah outshine them and steal the show in this confusing mediocre movie.

At first it seems the movie strikes as a modern take of The Count of Monte Cristo .. I mean the old story of the wronged young rebel guy who returns for revenge and the search for his loved one. However it falls out with exaggerated and caricatured toxic masculinity. A stylized and tacky male gaze. And in the half and end of second act the plot ends up losing credibility.

The problem, beyond the burden of everything, is the strange determination that the film shows in claiming originality in each shot it offers without achieving it even once. Every time it comes to deciding,it always opt for the most formal, the most obvious. What we have already seen. And so, it repeats, for three hours of the closest thing to a French blockbuster, with a good marketing and PR behind it, it is that the French audiences are going to see this year.

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.

This movie is all style, no substance. It's an over-stylized, visually creative crime romance that somehow manages to be both emotionless and painfully cliché. Sure, there are some striking scenes that momentarily wowed me, but as soon as the movie ended, I forgot all of them. Why? Because for visuals to stick, they need to be tied to strong characters and meaningful story beats. They also need some level of consistency and repetition instead of just being random one-off moments scattered throughout the film. That said, these creative visuals do keep the movie from being boring, even as it drowns in clichés.

François Civil, Adèle Exarchopoulos, and their younger counterparts, Malik Frikah and Mallory Wanecque, all give solid performances, but I couldn't bring myself to care about their characters or their love story. They're just walking stereotypes-defined by a few traits, but not fully realized as people. Clotaire claims he ended up the way he did because of his rough upbringing, but the film never really backs that up. Jacqueline (Jackie) starts off clever, but her intelligence is quickly forgotten and never plays a role in the story. Her father, supposedly a kind and wise figure, never really impacts her life in any way. I guess he's just there to contrast Clotaire's unloving father and justify why she doesn't get involved in crime? That's it? Easily some of the worst character development I've seen in a while.

The themes are somehow even more cliché and uninspired than the characters and story. It tries to be about young love and its (in this case, meaningless) lifelong impact, but that doesn't land due to weak character work. Then, it throws in commentary on the economy, unemployment, and the bureaucracy of full-time jobs. It sprinkles in themes of female agency and family dysfunction. But none of these ideas actually resonate because they aren't built on strong storytelling or compelling characters.

At its core, this isn't a movie about themes, characters, or even the story. It's a movie about flashy visual creativity and tired genre tropes thrown in just for the sake of it. Sure, the cinematography and production design are impressive, but without the right characters and story, they don't land. I assume some of these shots will end up as shareable clips on social media, and honestly, that's where they work best. Watch it for the visuals-just don't expect anything more.