FilmBlather.com

"What's the craziest thing you ever did?"
"Fly."

Love Me If You Dare isn't so much about love in the conventional sense as it is about companionship in general, and the importance of having someone to spend one's life with, be it as lovers, friends, or even enemies. That's how I saw it, at least; others may interpret its whirlwind of color and metaphor as an expression of the characters' true, everlasting love for one another. Maybe. But that's kind of boring.

I like my interpretation better, and it's a shame that Love Me If You Dare is so overdirected and intellectually dishonest, or we may have had something here. First-time director Yann Samuel turns on all jets to the point where we become convinced that he's compensating for something, even though the story is in actuality pretty strong. And the resolution suffers from an instance of having one's cake and also trying to nibble on it a little bit maybe.

The idea behind the film -- that of a relationship based on a series of increasingly audacious dares, triggered by a colorful box that passes from the hands of one to the other once someone completes a dare -- could be interesting on any number of levels. The intriguing part for me is that while the game has been the one thread running through their lives from childhood to adulthood, neither Julien nor Sophie take it at face value. It can go from folly to necessity to insult in a matter of seconds; it breaks them up, brings them together, keeps them apart for years at a time. It's quite multipurpose, really.

A side effect of this plot device is that it keeps us on our toes; we really don't know quite what to expect next. There are times when the story seems to be following romance conventions, only to have the movie do a complete 180 and reveal a completely different motivation for the preceding scenes. The film's conceit allows it to do this plausibly, without tipping its hand or seeming to practice empty trickery -- an important asset for a screenwriter to have.

Love Me If You Dare's visual aggressiveness causes it to lose some of its subplots. Julien's relationship with his parents -- an undying love for his dying mother and a wariness of his father that eventually turns to hatred -- begins as a potentially touching undercurrent but is soon pushed off to the sidelines by all the fireworks. Furthermore, the Amelie-like style gives the movie an unnecessarily glib feel; what could have been a heartfelt romantic comedy often becomes an exercise in pizzazz instead.

Among other things, the script presents the relationship between its protagonist as being very narcissistic. When they're just kids, it's all about rebellion, sticking it to the authority figures, daring each other to do their own thing despite the watchful eyes of parents, teachers, principals. As adults, however, this begins to look less like a flight of fancy and more like terminal self-absorption; at the end, they leave two perfectly decent people standing out in the rain while they rekindle their old flame.

This is fine, gutsy even, if it wasn't for the fact that the script -- the ending, in particular -- clearly wants us to be with them on this. I wasn't sure how happy I could really be for them. Oh, I believe that they're happy, no matter which interpretation of the ambiguous ending you prefer, but they left such a trail of destruction in their path that I couldn't quite join them in a celebration of eternal love. Sorry.

Love Me If You Dare is engaging in spite of all this, and its stars (Marion Cotillard of Big Fish and Guillaume Canet of The Beach) are charmers. Yann Samuel shows promise, too; he just needs to sit down, take a few deep breaths, and realize that a movie does not have to be a circus to be lively.