Gerard Watkins
Occupation
Actor
Love Me If You Dare Review
Good
A smash hit in its native France, "Love Me If You Dare" is a precariously bold, dark but light-hearted comedy about a boy and a girl who grow up together challenging each other to more and more outrageous -- and sometimes even dangerous -- dares.
It's a game they play throughout their lives, much to the frustration and chagrin of parents, teachers, co-workers, lovers, spouses, and increasingly, each other. But it's a game so engrained in the personalities and self-identities of intellectual Julien (Guillaume Canet) and precocious Sophie (Marion Cotillard) that neither one is willing to back down and admit what's really going on -- namely that they're in love.
Trading a knocked-about carousel candy tin back and forth as a symbol of each challenge and a trophy of its completion, the game begins as a welcome distraction from trouble in their childhoods (although every dare seems to get them in more trouble). In their teens it becomes an excuse for embarrassments, pranks and sexual provocation, and in adulthood the dares devolve into emotionally dangerous symbols of their envy, disappointment and disapproval.
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