Forgetful French kisses

The baleful influence of Jean- Pierre Jeunet, director of the highly successful Amélie, hangs over this eccentric romance. Baleful because Jeunet's is not a style that is easy to copy without falling headlong into overwrought cliché.

It has Guillaume Canet and Marion Cotillard as schoolfriends-bound together by their often destructive dares and double dares. They infuriate teachers, parents and almost everybody else - until they reach adulthood and seem to have mended their ways. But they haven't, with traumatic results. They find themselves

not only best mates but in love, complicated by the fact that they have both married others in the meanwhile.

Good performances from Canet and Cotillard save the film from some of its excesses and hidden under its tricksy surface is a criticism of the constraints of French bourgeois life. We are clearly meant to sympathise with the pair. As it is, I have to say that faced with these two lovers I'd quickly make my excuses and leave the room.

Love Me If You Dare (Jeux D'Enfants)
Cert: cert15