How Much Do You Love Me?

aka: Combien tu m'aimes?
France / Italy 2005, 95 minutes
Dir. Bertrand Blier
In French with English subtitles
Genres: Foreign Cinema, Comedy, Drama

Feat. Monica Bellucci, Gerard Depardieu, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Bernard Campan

Aroview: Akin to THE VALET’s improbable live-in relationship, but offering entirely different results, this peculiar comedy-romance stars Monica Bellucci as a high-class prostitute who agrees to move in with a balding, unattractive office worker – for the right price.

Under the pretense of a lottery windfall, the film employs its identity ruse in true French style, with the ubiquitous Gerard Depardieu complicating matters as a sinister third wheel. Awkwardly though, Blier’s attempts to deviate from the formula results in some peculiar tonal changes, a leering eye for Bellucci’s assets, and an overall clumsiness in direction that makes this farcical in form rather than content.

NZ International Film Festival 2006