Love Me If You Dare
(Jeux d'enfants)

directed by Yann Samuell
written by Yann Samuell and Jacky Cukier
 
starring: Guillaume Canet and Marion Cotillard

         Yann Samuell’s Love Me if You Dare has the cinematic equivalence of saying, “I love you,” when you don’t mean it. Rather than genuine romance and conveyance of true love between its characters, we are meant to assume that they love each other. In movies, when a boy and girl are friends since childhood, they must eventually fall for each other.
        There are a few times where the film hankers to comment on the difference between love and reciprocal consort, but only in its failure to be romantic does it succeed in any demonstration of this. Intent more on championing peter pan lifestyles, particularly when bad things happen, Samuell doesn’t communicate the appeal of childhood and youth nor does he give circumstantial argument for why more adults are not carefree. As a more literal translation of the French title Jeux d’enfants, “Child’s Play” would be fittingly mocking of how immature the characters are depicted yet the aim for such self-consciousness is not apparent.
            The film’s ad campaign suggests a comparison and the Internet Movie Database even lists the director as “sometimes credited as: Jean-Pierre Jeunet,” but fans looking for even an ersatz Amelie will find far less. Only in the first of four parts, which introduces 8 year olds Julien and Sophie, are there hints of the same animated charm. This film, however, doesn’t share any of the magical whimsy. There is no natural flow or happenstance about it, only a labored gimmick and some unevenly manufactured style.
           In an attempt to take their minds off their troubles, Julien watching his mother’s health deteriorate and Sophie discriminated for being a poor immigrant, the two children begin a game of dare, passing a tin box to signify turns. The results include a school bus running off without its driver, a teacher splattered with ink, some soiled trousers and a wedding dessert table crashing to the floor. With what must have ensued in the next ten years, as the film flashes forward to the pair during exams, it’s a wonder the kids even made it through high school without going to jail.
          Part two is less fantastic and subsequently less contrived making for the most interesting bits. Sophie develops feelings for her friend, daring him to kiss her in the middle of the street, but then questions whether he did it because he wanted to or because of the game. It is here that the script starts to say something about the way people fall in love, but this isn’t what Samuell is going for and the picture moves on to a very twisted second half, advancing forward in time again, as the adult Julien and Sophie get nasty, playing tricks more than dares. There is some deception on the audience as well and it offers a feeling of being cheated that works less as relation to the characters than as unnatural invention.
         By the film’s end, the characters fulfill the desires of audiences rooting for their relationship as well as those who don’t. With such a compromise, there is question whether the fulfillment is satisfying to either. It is more likely that by the third act, very few actually care what happens to these characters who, with their game, have never developed as more than a device for a message that isn’t even that clear.

Expectation Key


there's no possible way we will even see this

we'll eventually see this but we aren't really expecting much

anticipating the release of this one but we're sure to be left unsatisfied

such high expectation of this film only leaves room for disappointment