Touches You

Purely Joyful Movie!

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

In this movie there is no comprehensable storyline at all, and I didn't see any way clear to reach the end...

This is a clever story about relationships and a display of three main categories of players in the game of relationships: playboys (Max), manipulative women (Alice) and the fools who may be indeed in love (Lisa, Muriel and Lucien).Max and Alice are very unlikeable and perhaps despicable characters but who are always in control in the game leaving their partners around in the dark. But as the profusely discussed ending tells us, as veteran players as Max and Alice were, they would be happy to part ways anytime they see fit as if the game was just announced to be over and each one of them could not care less to get on with his or her own life and play another game with some other anonymous people when another opportunity presented itself. Lisa, Muriel and Lucien might be the ones who felt like investing something real in a relationship, only not being able to realise that they were the baits in the game and the ultimate losers (as far as what we were shown is concerned....who knows if they are also advance players of some sort in their worlds not shown to us on screen).This is a very fast-paced, delicately crafted and seductively witty story with an enticing execution by the cast. It also deserves some deeper thinking: how much is real in a game of relationship?

A lot has already been written about the film itself, so instead of adding to the noise I just want to say a few words on the two female actors.It has to be a daunting prospect for any actress to star, in a sense, versus the spectacular Monica Bellucci, but Romane Bohringer pulls it off to sensational ends. A film starring Monica Bellucci where I fall in love with the other girl?? That's not supposed to happen.It's been said a thousand times, but Monica Bellucci strikes the saddest figure in modern cinema. I have never before seen such innate sadness. She would not be out of place breaking Lon Chaney's heart.

In this tense and character-driven romantic tragi-comedy, we are given an insight into the intertwining lives of four thirtysomething Parisians. At the centre is Vinz Cassell's portrayal of Max. A starry-eyed Romeo, he falls head over heels for beautiful stranger Lisa (Bellucci). Encouraged by his put-upon best friend Lucien (Écoffey, in an understated but effective performance), he wins her heart and they live happily ever after... that is, until the scheming, neurotic and obsessive Alice (the versatile Romane Bohringer) becomes very involved in the lives and loves of the other three.The rich plot is thickened by a curious chronological jumble, and the movie emerges as an intricate jigsaw, the eye-candy of picture-postcard Paris at the heart of it all. The use of colour does not go unnoticed, particularly in Lisa's spectacular apartment (presumably accounting for the film's title), where the reds and yellows provoke the fires of passion and lust.The audience can relate to Max: he truly wears his heart on his sleeve and is constantly punished by irony and circumstance for it. In one memorable scene, our fated lovers (agonisingly separated by a 'choreographed' misunderstanding) narrowly miss out on the chance meeting that would surely reunite them. Independent of one another, they travel to the same destination: her on the Metro, him in a taxi, practically tête-à-tête. Yet fate seems to have it in for them, and the audience is captivatingly teased.The performances in this film are really what make L'Appartement stand out. I still cannot understand why Vincent Cassell is not a big star outside France. He has presence and diversity in abundance. Monica Bellucci (Cassell's real-life spouse at the time of writing) has recently found fame in the Anglophone film industry, but perhaps for the wrong reasons - true, she is divinely beautiful, but behind that is a talented actress who can dominate a scene in classic 'leading-lady' style, which many British and American actresses dismiss in favour of the all-too-easy 'subtle' approach.All in all, watch this film! I doubt you'll be disappointed. It is gripping, satisfying, amusing, sad, lavish, and a lesson in artistic film-making.