Love and Magnets
Love and Magnets
| 01 October 2004 (USA)
Love and Magnets Trailers

Back in Montréal after spending five years in Guatemala, Julie moves in with her elder sister, Jeanne, a chronic liar and woman of rather loose sexual morals... Disillusioned with love, Jeanne is nevertheless engaged to Noël. However, Jeanne and Noël lead separate lives, and only communicate by leaving each other messages on the fridge.Everything suddenly becomes very complicated. Jeanne compels Julie to take up with Noël so she can have a fling with a passionate musician. Noël, meanwhile, sets Julie up with Michel -- without Jeanne's knowledge. Julie mixes things up even further. Egged on by her friend Marie-Ève, she alters the contents of the messages on the fridge in an attempt to breathe new life into Jeanne and Noël's relationship. Along the way, she also begins to fall for the seductive Michel. The tables are turned on everyone... In the game of love and truth, illusion leads to betrayal, but love conquers all.

Reviews
swissxav

This movie is light, funny, and beautifully filmed. The lightning is absolutely superb, and the colours convincingly remind Vermeer paintings.This is sentimental comedy at its best, way above US and French standards, and arguably better than English ones too. Every character is touching, and interpretation is close to perfection. Isabelle Blais is splendid, Sylvie Moreau is better than in the Catherine series, Stéphane Gagnon is charming, Emmanuel Bilodeau is great in that weird role of his, and Geneviève Laroche is the perfect best friend!I could go on for hours before finding any negative comment on this movie, so give it a chance, and add your own review.

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dchristrev

And I absolutely adore Isabelle Blais!!! She was so cute in this movie, and far different from her role in "Quebec-Montreal" where she was more like a man-eater. I think she should have been nominated for a Jutra. I mean, Syvlie Moreau was good, but Isabelle was far superior, IMO. Pelletier has done fine work for his first time out, and I noticed he snuck in a couple of his buddies from Rock et Belles Oreilles, Guy A. LePage & Andre Ducharme. It was fun to see them in this, I didn't know they were going to appear.I don't think I've seen a romantic comedy from Quebec that I didn't like, and this one is as good as any I've had the pleasure to see. And if you're in the states and wondering how you can get a copy of the DVD, www.archambault.ca delivered it to me in less than a week.

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Alex Caulfield

I have seen romantic comedies and this is one of the easiest/worst attempts at one. A lot of the scenes work in a plug-and-play manner inserted strictly to conform to the romantic-comedy genre. Usually this is okay because we're dealing with a genre, but the challenge generally resides in making it original, new and inventive. This movie fails to do so.There is no sense of who the characters really are, apart from Sylvie Moreau's (who is the real star of this movie, not Isabelle Blais). They fit into this one-dimensional cliché and they become nothing more than simple puppets serving the purpose of a very light narrative.The pacing of the movie can become annoying, rhythm lacks, and the editing is filled with unnecessary close-ups. I should also mention the overly stylized decors making some scenes devoid of any naturally, or rather, making the attempt at naturally seem too obvious. Of course, along with that, you have the right-on-cue sappy music which unfortunately often sounds mismatched.I can't believe that a movie who makes obvious Woody Allen allusions ends up being this deceptive. If you expect a good light-hearted romantic comedy, this is not it. Or rather, this a poor attempt at it. You will only leave the theater wondering why this film has been getting such praise when cinema is now more than 100 years old and there are far superior Quebecois directors making better flicks.Les Aimants is a good movie for what it is. But it's a bad one if you regard cinema as an art and directors as auteur's.

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benoitlelievre

This movie has been made by one of the most absurd humorists in Canada, Yves P. Pelletier. I was shocked for a second that he made a ROMANTIC comedy, but knowing he was a heavy cinephile, was seen in every local festival and in the local cinematheque, I had a positive feeling about this movie.Hell, I was right. Right off the bat, the scenario (written by Pelletier himself) is a bit twisted and hard to follow, but, in Pelletier's fashion it's a one-of-a-kind 90 minutes jack-in-the-box.Loosely inspired and mostly transformed allusion to Dangerous Liaisons (by Laclos) "Les Aimants" consists of a twisted game of writing notes on the fridge. Throughout the movie you'll get the occasion to find out who's who and who's writing to who on that goddam fridge....which pops up in an interesting love affair.Great storyline, great photography, great quotations of other movies. Should we ask more for a first movie?

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