Love Me If You Dare movie review (2004)

The movie will appeal to lovers of "Amelie," according to the ads. Not if they loved "Amelie" for its good cheer. This is "Amelie" through the lookingglass. Yes, it has some of the same visual invention and delight, and director Yann Samuell's camera swoops and circles and flies through windows and into dreams. Yes, there's a bright color palette. Yes, the movie riffs through techniques, including animated sequences. Yes, Marion Cotillard has sweetness and appeal as Sophie, and yes, she and Julien (Guillaume Canet) seem destined to spend their lives together. But like this?

When they meet, they're 8 years old and Sophie is being picked on at school because she's a foreigner. Julien defends her. They become friends for life. Even their first childish dares are risky, as when Sophie dares Julien to release the parking brake on the school bus; as it rolls downhill, do they get a fix of excitement that hooks them for life? Before long Julien is in the principal's office, peeing in his pants -- not because he's scared, but because Sophie dared him to.

The dares get riskier and more embarrassing as they grow older. Julien dares Sophie to take an oral exam at university while wearing her panties and bra outside her clothes. Sophie dares Julien to say "no" at the altar on his wedding day. Of course he won't be marrying her; that would be too easy, because she'd be in on the joke.

For that matter, what is their relationship? Are they in love, or simply trapped in a hypnotic mutual fascination? There's a flash-forward in the movie from a scene where Sophie sleeps over at Julien's house when they're 8, to the two of them as adults, still in the same position in bed. But have they had sex in the meantime? Does it matter? Their bond is deeper than sex and love; it's the bond of shared madness.

At one point in the movie, they dare each other to stay completely out of contact for 10 years. Will they get their pact out of their system? Not at all. Every moment of those 10 years, they're acutely aware of the passage of time and the fulfillment of their dare, and when they meet again at the end, it's to escalate the dare to a new and disturbing level.