Sarah’s Review: ‘Jeux D’Enfants’ (Love Me If You Dare)

All of us know that the French do romance the right way with Paris making all its love magic. The French hone the most romantic city on earth, while the rest of the world helps glorify it. The rest of the world helps uphold its image as THE place to find love through romance film after romance film. The Eiffel Tower gets old, don’t you think? If you are looking for a simple “love in Paris” flick, you won’t find it in this French foreign film Love Me if You Dare that was released in 2003. Love Me if You Dare, originally titled Jeux D’Enfants, shows that the French are just as confused with love as the rest of us. The film is a diamond in the rough when it comes to dark comedy. Yann Samuell has mixed dark comedy and romance into a film both genders can enjoy. Gentlemen, don’t run away just because the word romance is being thrown around here. I recommend Love Me if You Dare to anyone with a love for foreign film and a sense of humor.

The film begins with a pretty tin circular box given to Julien Janvier by his sick mother. The box becomes the center of a game that must never be played with your best friend, according to eight year old Julien. When he sees a new classmate from Poland, Sophie Kowalsky, having a hard time with the other children, he gives the box to her. Then he asks her to lend it sometimes. Sophie won’t give it back. She says if Julien wants the box back he has to prove it. Next thing you know, a bus full of panicking children (the same children making fun of Sophie) is sent rolling down the street in neutral. Once Julien has the box, he can dare Sophie to prove she deserves the box. The box becomes a never-ending game of dares between the two best friends. As Julien and Sophie mature, their friendship becomes blurred with fits of love for each other. However, neither will actually admit to loving the other. They would rather drag out ridiculous dares that only end up hurting the one being dared.

The characters develop into interesting and complex adults. Both characters come from backgrounds that have shaped them differently than your average Bourgeois family child. Sophie is raised in a family where her sister helps with a lot of the parenting. From the beginning, Julien carries more weight emotionally, in turn, making him a more complex character by the end of the film. You may hate the characters the youngsters turn into. When you consider the circumstances, you begin to understand they are only trying to understand the world that has been put in front of them. They have to deal with it, even if it isn’t appropriate in the eyes of society.

The roles of Julien and Sophie are cast for childhood and then cast again for young adult to adulthood. Both casts are phenomenal! As children, Julien is played by Thibault Verhaeghe and Sophie by Josephine Lebas-Jolly. They do an exceptional job playing the adorable yet mischievous children that are every parent and teacher’s nightmare. As young adults to adults, Julien is played by Guillaume Canet, and Sophie by the ever popular, Marion Cotillard. The adults are amazing talent that continues the film flawlessly after the ten year lapse. They did homework on understanding the complex adult characters and give beautiful permances. As a viewer, you can’t help but love the pair even when you hate them.

Something many people don’t know about Marion Cotillard, is that her role Love Me if You Dare is helped her get the recognition in to star in other high-profile French films like La vie en rose, which she of course won an Oscar for in 08′. For Love Me if You Dare, she won the Jury Award for best actress at the Newport Beach Film Festival. If it were not for this film, she may never have been cast in La vie en rose, or Public Enemies, or Inception, thus never giving us her outstanding performance as Mal. If you liked her performance in Inception, you will love her performance in this film.

Furthermore, for those of you who are unfamiliar with Yann Samuell, he is a respected director in film advertising and music videos. He does short film and he does it well. It was a surprise in 2003 when Love Me if You Dare became Samuell’s first ever full length film. If the movie tanked, it would be all on him. However, he knows how to captivate short film audiences with pictures and he doesn’t sell himself short in Love Me if You Dare. As you watch this movie, you can tell he constantly “sells” the image of love between Julien and Sophie. He makes it look like Julien and Sophie are meant to be together, even when they are denying it through other actions. He shows people that love can continually be captured in life, even if it defies Bourgeois societal values. People should be accepted for who they are, not discarded for who they are not. Today, values and boundaries have been blurred in relationships. Julien and Sophie are his representations of people trying to live that struggle with what they know best, each other.

Well, there is only one thing left I can demand of you at this point. I dare you… to watch this movie, while reading the subtitles, with your fullest attention. Are you game?

What Do You Think? Discuss.