Love Me If You Dare
A huge hit in France,Love Me if You Daretakes the traditional l'amour fou scenario and runs it through a pinball machine. From childhood, Julien and Sophie engage in an obsessive battle of one-upmanship:  if one of them hands a brightly colored candy tin to the other and makes a dare, the recipient is bound to honor it, no matter how destructive or dangerous the dare might be. When this wacky habit enters adulthood and begins wrecking their lives, they ought to change... but that's not how l'amour fou works. PartAmelie-style comedy, part dark fable, this movie has quirkiness to burn, if not always as much charm as it thinks it has. Leads Guillaume Canet and Marion Cotillard are ardent, although somewhat out-acted by their juvenile counterparts in the film's early section. If you're curious about what would've happened to Amelie if she took her obsession to its logical conclusion, hop aboard.--Robert Horton