Former animator Yann Samuell's debut feature is an acid-spiked confection, playing like Amélie without the feelgood factor. No bad thing, though it's all a bit too trifling to linger in the cortex. The action circles around Sophie (Marion Cotillard) and Julien (Guillaume Canet), outsiders and childhood friends who, despite clearly being one another's intended, get entangled in an ongoing game of mutual dares that overrides their real feelings. Helmer Samuell has fun watching them egg each other on to amusingly cruel new levels of mischief, keeping things lively with vivid, fantastical flourishes that recall both Ma Vie En Rose and that pixie from Montmartre.
The two leads are nicely, blithely twisted too, though that's part of the problem: game-playing is all this adds up to, with neither cast nor director daring to invest much feeling into the film. It's fun while it lasts, maybe, but it slips from the memory within hours of leaving the cinema.
