I think the French title sums up this film best, but not in the way it intends. I love romantic crap like this normally, especially offbeat stuff -- but the characters never seem to grow up, they remain children playing children's games. This prevented me from really caring about their eventual joined fate.
Especially when the stakes are raised, and the lovers takes on spouses and have children, they never really grow up and these people have no bearing on their infantile love-battle with each other. The fact that these outsiders disappear conveniently when they are not needed in the story shows how shallow the storytelling truly is.
Admittedly, a movie I like very much, SHE'S SO LOVELY, features a similar storyline where childish people are separated by time and when they come back together, they throw away everything that has happened in the intervening years just to be together again. The difference is that that film was written with an emphasis on character, not on style, and while it is not wholly successful, it remains a better portrait of l'amour fou than this film.
Especially when the stakes are raised, and the lovers takes on spouses and have children, they never really grow up and these people have no bearing on their infantile love-battle with each other. The fact that these outsiders disappear conveniently when they are not needed in the story shows how shallow the storytelling truly is.
Admittedly, a movie I like very much, SHE'S SO LOVELY, features a similar storyline where childish people are separated by time and when they come back together, they throw away everything that has happened in the intervening years just to be together again. The difference is that that film was written with an emphasis on character, not on style, and while it is not wholly successful, it remains a better portrait of l'amour fou than this film.