Criminal Lovers

1999 French movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Oh, those crazy teenagers! Pretty Alice convinces a naive virgin named Luc to help her murder a classmate. They flee to the woods like Hanzel and Gretel and wind up kidnapped by a guy who likes to take baths. Oh, snap! Seduction occurs.

Watching this Francois Ozon movie left me feeling about the same as I did when watching the other Francois Ozon movie on my blog. There are ideas, a few interesting shots, a general feel that I almost liked. It just doesn't congeal, and I was ready for the whole thing to be over pretty quickly. Apparently, I like my French movies more whimsical and lilting and light. I didn't really have issues with any of the pieces of this movie, but it didn't add up to anything that resonates. It hangs around, festers a bit, has a surprise, clunks along some more, and then ends in a way that left me apathetic and wishing I had watched Bonnie and Clyde or a French version of "Hansel and Gretel" with grotesque puppets. And yeah, I realize that's not saying anything at all since I'm going to choose grotesque puppets over anything else nearly every time. This is colored in a style that makes it all flat when it should be vibrant or suspenseful, and it's realistic in almost a stifling way where Ozon should have taken more advantage of the fairy tale parallels to create something more dreamy and timeless. This is a movie that just nearly takes challenges and seems halfassed because of it. Plus, we never get to see the gal naked. Natacha Regnier, by the way, was married to Yann Tiersen, the guy who did the music for Amelie. And that, friends, is how you end a blog post with information that absolutely nobody cares about. You know, as opposed to the rest of what's on this blog.