How Much Do You Love Me? (2005)

In this gleeful, bawdy sex comedy, Francois, a balding, downtrodden office worker tells the gorgeous prostitute, Daniela (Monica Bellucci), that he's won the lottery and invites her home to spend his money. The ensuing negotiations of cat-and-mouse are played out with verve and wit by both, and by a supporting cast of vicariously engaged friends and neighbors, including Gerard Depardieu as Monica Bellucci's bedraggled mobster boyfriend, Charly. Product Description

Monica Bellucci is reason enough to see this film.

Monica Bellucci (Irreversible; The Passion of the Christ) saves this 2005 French film whenever it teeters on the edge of disaster. Written and directed by Bertrand Blier, How Much Do You Love Me? (Combien tu m'aimes?) stars Bellucci, Bernard Campan, and Gérard Depardieu in an unlikely romantic comedy that tells the off-center story of a lonely Paris office clerk, François (Campan), who goes to a "hooker bar" in Pigalle to offer a beautiful prostitute, Daniela (Bellucci), 100,000 Euros a month to live with him until his money runs out. To get her attention, François tells Daniela he has just won the lottery and has millions to spend on her. After staying with him for eight days, Daniela loses interest and decides to return to her her pimp "husband," Charly (Depardieu), mostly because he has "a big one." However, she continues to think about François, who made her feel modest again.

Monica Bellucci melts the screen with her stunning physical charms. This movie is at its best when the camera is fixed on her, even when Bellucci is only taking off her shoes. This is a minor but colorful French film, and Monica Bellucci makes it easy to forgive this film for its many faults.

G. Merritt August 28, 2008

Imcomprehensible but has opera and sex

This movie boasts a ravishing operatic soundtrack and frank sexual depictions -- and that's about it.
It lacks a coherent plot or compelling characters. Frankly, it's utterly incomprehensible and just gets more and more so as it progresses.
There is one (and only one) compelling reason to see this and that is Bellucci's astounding (and apparently natural) gravity-defying breasts which we get to see plenty of from various angles.
The story (such as it is) surrounds a lonely guy who says he wins the lottery and pays a prostitute to live with him until his money runs out. His doctor warns him he will strain his weak heart -- then the doctor keels over and dies, having first delivered a long, tiresome speech about his own pathetic lonely life. Gerard Depardieu shows up and says he is a ruthless gang boss but just talks endlessly about what a bad guy he is. Other assorted characters make brief appearances for reasons best know to the screenwriter. Then it all ends -- either happily or unhappily but by then I didn't care one way or the other. July 5, 2008

This is more an ode to Bellucci than a movie

This movie didn't know what it wanted to be, a romantic comedy, or a gangster movie perhaps? Maybe it just wanted to emulate theater and opera...The thing is, it just didn't work. The movie, and the characters, were all over the place.

The story is ... very "Pretty Woman" with a twist. An office clerk tells a prostitute, Daniela (Bellucci), that he just won the lottery and he will pay her each month for living with him. Throw into the mix that he apparently has a weak heart, Daniela's pimp, curious friends and the possibility of love. Monica Bellucci is, as always, splendid, yet even she looked bored in this film. She was horribly mismatched with Bernard Campan and even Depardieu delivered inferior work. The problem is that the characters were underdeveloped and all over the place in their emotions, their stories and their desires. In fact, the viewer is at an equal disadvantage; we do not know what is going on, and it's not even funny!

The dialogue is dry and melodramatic and soon turns into an ode to Bellucci's character ("she is a nuclear bomb" "she is a beautiful woman", etc...). I understand that Bellucci is God's gift to men, but this movie's dialogue was more like an ode written by the director for Bellucci. Yet, with all the beauty and stellar acting, not even Bellucci can save this disastrous movie.

This movie started out a bit film noir, then became a romantic comedy, then a gagster movie and then theater, throwing a bit of alternate states/frames of mind at the end. Not cohesive, main characters failed at chemistry and the movie is too into itself to let the viewer in. The 3 stars? All for Bellucci and for her alone. May 14, 2008

Blier encore

If you see a Blier film, without being told it is Blier film, you will recognize it immediately. His cinematic vocabulary and his themes are unique. You know you will see a film about the struggle of men and women on a very fundamental level, usually played out in the bedroom. You know there will be beautiful women with semi-cretinous men, sporting half nude throughout the film. You know the men will have a buddy and that the buddy will have to share the woman in some way.

Blier is an auteur and a bit of a poet. You must view his films like a canvas or a poem. You cannot simply sit back and let the story unfold.

Blier is fascinated with sexual politics. He wants to study the shifts in power in the struggle of a couple. He is not a prude nor is he a moralist. He sees the male-female relationship as a power stuggle-the greater the struggle, the greater the passion.

Blier is a fetishist. He likes to linger on breasts, legs, hair, and coupling couples.

Blier is shocking and profane; he is also aware of the human comedy and comedic side of love and romance.

I find his movies entertaining and authentic, unique and disturbing. He is not for everyone.

April 21, 2008

Monica Rules

I wasn't expecting much from the film - I thought, another throwaway French farce - but this drew me in. The premise has been written about here, so I won't belabor the point. What works: smart writing; great direction; a mixed sense of emotions, and the beauty that is Monica Bellucci. They don't make 'em like her anymore. Bellucci radiates a vulnerable sense of an old time movie star or should I say classic, so she doesn't sound so old - without her allure, this movie would simply not work.

Lead actor Bernard Campan and Gerard Depardieu play their parts well, and serve as Monica's foils. Although the film veers slightly into the theatre/stage like mode (think Moulin Rouge or old 1950s films) - it maintains its integrity because of its characters. Moving along like an old Francois Truffaut film - light, dark, bouncy - the script inexplicably lets the reins go at the end and digresses into a melange of weak scenarios. Like a beautiful horse ride in a carriage that hits a boulder and falls apart...

In spite of this misgiving, the film is worth watching for Bellucci fans (eye candy, but also lovely acting chops - or is that her look?), but yes, a tighter script at the epilogue would have been so much more satisfying and fulfilled this film's promising start to a far more memorable status. I have no idea why or how they lost the plot on this. Viva Bellucci anyway - women won't get it perhaps, but for the men in the audience like me, she could be polishing shoes and we'd admire her radiance - script foibles and all. January 20, 2008

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