He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not (film)
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| He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover of He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not |
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| Directed by | Laetitia Colombani |
| Produced by | Dominique Brunner, Charles Gassot |
| Written by | Laetitia Colombani, Caroline Thivel |
| Starring | Audrey Tautou, Samuel Le Bihan, Isabelle Carré, Clément Sibony, Sophie Guillemin |
| Music by | Jérôme Coullet |
| Distributed by | Sony Pictures Entertainment |
| Release date(s) | February 14, 2003 (LA/NY) |
| Running time | 92 min. |
| Language | French |
| IMDb profile | |
He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not (Original French: À la folie... pas du tout) is a 2002 film starring Audrey Tautou.
[edit] Plot
The film opens with Angélique (Audrey Tautou), a young art student from Bordeaux, buying a single pink rose for her lover, Dr Loïc Le Garrec (Samuel Le Bihan), a successful cardiologist. She asks for the rose to be delivered to his office, and both she and the messenger leave the shop and depart in opposite directions.
Angélique seems a relatively normal girl. She is a successful art student, having just won a scholarship and grant, she has a part time job at a cafe, helps her friend Héloïse (Sophie Guillemin) look after her little sister, and housesits for another. As the film progresses, we discover her affair with Dr Le Garrec, and yet, something seems wrong. Although she waits for him, to celebrate his birthday, he never shows, and actually seems to care more about his pregnant wife Rachel (Isabelle Carré) than about her. Finally, she gets wind that his wife has had a miscarriage and that they have separated, and prepares to go with him on a trip to Florence. However, instead of showing up, he decides to go and see his wife. This is the last straw for Angélique and she is thrown into a self-destructive cycle of depression, losing her job, her scholarship, and herself. Then, while watching the news one night, she hears that Dr Le Garrec has been arrested for assaulting one of his patients, Soniya Jasmin (Nathalie Krebs). She goes out in the middle of the night, tracks down the complaintant Ms Jasmin, and kills her. She then fixes the scene to make it look like a robbery.
Thinking that this act of selflessness will win him back, she goes to see him, and arrives just in time to see him being arrested by the police for Soniya Jasmin's murder, and embracing his wife as he is dragged away. This finally blows it for Angélique and she goes home, turns on the gas, and lies down. We see her eyes close, and it seems that it's all over for her.
However, the film briefly pauses, and then starts to play in reverse. She opens her eyes, gets up, turns off the gas, and the film rewinds entirely to the very first scene where she buys him that first single pink rose.
From here, we again see her and the messenger leave simultaneously, and go their separate ways. But this time, rather than following Angélique (an unreliable narrator), we follow the messenger and the film plays itself out again from the point of view of Dr Loïc Le Garrec.
As his side of the story develops, the audience begins to learn that, not only does Dr Le Garrec not care about Angélique, he does not actually know who she is. In fact, every instance in which the two of them are seen together is completely innocent, and it's only because the audience is led to think that they are having an affair that these chance meetings seem to be something else. Rather than Loïc being a man who is not only cheating on his wife, but also mistreating the girl with whom he is having an affair, he is portrayed now as a good, loyal and loving husband who is being stalked by an erotomaniac (a mental disorder where someone believes themself to be in a relationship that does not in actual fact exist, often with people in higher stations than their own, usually moviestars and other famous icons). Her obsession with him goes to such an extent that it is implied that she was responsible for his wife's miscarriage.
Loïc, almost at his wit's end (which happens to occur just after he does not show up on the "planned" Florence trip), receives a present, unmarked and unnamed. He opens it up to find a human heart with an arrow through it. Believing that this stalker is Soniya Jasmin, he loses control and attacks her, which is then reported. After her subsequent death, he is arrested.
At his arrest, his wife returns to him and helps him since she is a lawyer. He is freed of charges. One night, he hears police sirens and sees an ambulance pull up to his neighbour's house, where his neighbour (who we find out is Angélique minding her friend's house), has just tried to commit suicide. As a doctor, Loïc performs mouth to mouth resuscitation on Angélique who is briefly awake. In the hospital, her friend David (Clément Sibony), who has long had a crush on Angélique, approaches Loïc and punches him, believing that he is deliberately taunting Angélique. Loïc remembers having greeted her, and presenting her with one rose from a bouquet intended for his wife several weeks previously. Loïc then looks through all the things that were sent to him, including a key. That night, he uses the key and discovers that it does indeed open the door to his neighbour's house. Inside the house he discovers a mess, and on the wall, a life-sized picture of him. He finally realises the truth.
At the conclusion of the film, Angélique approaches Dr Le Garrec, still hoping that he will take her as his one true love. When she is refused, she beats him over the head with a brass figurine lying next to her. She is arrested for attempted murder, and committed to a mental institution for her erotomania.
The film ends with her leaving the mental hospital, allegedly cured, and with a warning to continue taking her medication, the only thing really stopping her obsession with Dr Le Garrec. However, as she leaves, and her room is cleared out, a cleaner discovers that every single pill she should have taken over the last five years has been attached to the wall in a mosaic of Loïc. Oblivious to what this discovery signifies, the cleaner merely sighs and removes it, as Angélique walks down the hall out of the asylum and disappears...
