This movie is good.The concept is simple, two strangers meet up by chance, and fall in love. However unlike the love films we are accustomed to, this film, ends on a somewhat positive yet open note.There is mostly quiet movie, but like the Japanese film Dolls (which I reviewed just a few minutes ago) the lack of dialogue works. This is a movie about love and just a night together in both the crowded and deserted parts of the city (which are deserted because of the congestion). The main point of the movie is what the stars are doing, sitting in the car together, meeting up again, eating together, sleeping together, and just getting along and being friends and lovers.The movie is also well shot with some nice shots of Paris and and appealing looking hotel and restaurant.9 out of 10.

What a truly dismal film this is. It's a disastrous nightmare of a film, I completely hated it. I admit some of the cinematography is quite beautiful (though less than breathtaking). But, to get to the point (which this film never does), it's boring. It's really boring. Quite frankly it's more boring than watching a blank screen for 90 minutes - is that all? It seemed three times as long. Nothing happens at all: there's no plot, no dialogue, there's nothing to the characters. It's just a string of very very long scenes in which nothing happens: the heroes are stuck in traffic for ages, they go out and have a totally boring dinner, and so on. Even the sex is profoundly boring. There are literally about 20 words spoken during the whole film, and those are all of such a studied banality as to almost (but not) make them funny.Why would anyone make a film like this? Well I suppose that the idea was to make a film illustrating the boring and unfulfilling lives that many lonely people live in big cities. If that is the aim of the film, then there's no question that it succeeds, but surely there must be a more imaginative way of doing it than by making such a boring and unfulfilling film. It seems as if the director believed that the inclusion of anything which wasn't bowel-achingly tedious (an interesting character for instance, maybe the odd thought-provoking bit of dialogue, the occasional bit of action, or even (God forbid) some plot worth speaking of) would constitute a breach of principle. So such conventional contrivances are rejected, and we're left with a blow by blow account of two deeply uninteresting silent people being stuck in traffic. Well thank you for the insight into the human condition, but I've learned more about life, and had a far more entertaining time, clipping my toenails.

I understand how a number of people would find this movie difficult to enjoy. There are parts where you are unsure if they are real or if its the lead female fantasizing. Not much appears to happen unless you think about what you are seeing.The cinematography of this film is beautiful. There is a clear color palette to the key shots. Also so much information is given from the actor's and reactions. There is very little dialogue. The camera is used as a character in the film. It shows us the claustrophobic state that the lead female is feeling because a major change in her life. She is changing from a young woman to a domestic woman. The other comment refers to the female's beauty. Films control so much of our identity of beauty that we've forgotten that ordinary people exist. Also that someone might find an ordinary person to be attractive.

Claire Denis sure knows the French woman's mentality. She is very sly in presenting us this story, that on the surface tells us one thing, but deep down, it has nothing to do what we are actually watching.The transit strike plot, with Laure sitting in traffic and going nowhere, is played too long. We all get the idea of the boredom and frustration of the driver caught in similar circumstances. That part of the film can drive the viewer nuts, since nothing happens.Laure doesn't feel any remorse into picking up Jean, who is obviously stranded, or is he?. Their conversation doesn't reveal anything, yet, one can feel where this is leading to: somewhere where Laure and Jean can copulate to their hearts content.The clue of what's to come takes place after they have an espresso at the cafe. Jean asks for change to go downstairs to the vending machine for a 4 condom pack. Oh la la... Jean is not a casual sex offender, he must protect himself, as well as the woman he takes to bed. Casual meetings such as these can be very dangerous!The scenes in the hotel are well staged. In fact, there is nothing shocking, or done in bad taste. When Laure and Jean are making out, their behavior is very chaste, without French kisses, (I wonder if Pres. Bush would call them Liberty kisses?...) is a let down. But Jean and Laure do it very stylishly and with decorum.Jean, obviously, is not a one-woman man. After all he has more condoms in his pocket and when he is in the pizzeria, he spots another woman who makes it known she wants to play with him downstairs. At the end of the film we watch Laure leave the hotel room running into the deserted streets with a grin on her face. She'll go now to her own lover as though nothing had ever happened that night. She is a woman empowered by her own will to have fun, yet not take it too seriously, or hurt anyone. Perhaps she's laughing at her own sense of adventure having done something that perhaps no one will ever know.Both of the principals are very effective. Veronique Lemercier and Vincent Lindon play very well together. The director is perhaps telling us that there is still hope for all of us, non movie star types, to have fun and meet a partner for the night, have great sex on the next transit strike, if we are in Paris.