Je suis l'autre

Ah, it had to happen soon or later - my first dud at Melbourne International Film Festival. I could have walked out of this film at any time after five minutes or so, but with nice visuals it was tolerable. A man is engaged to marry but falls for another woman, who has a personality disorder. It starts off with all the psychology of a Hitchcock thriller but ends up being way too contrived. I was able to anticipate all the surprises.

While the film's visuals were excellent and had a reasonable cast, there were serious problems:

* none of the characters had any chemistry and it was impossible to suspend disbelief

* characters were caricatured

* the screenplay was very weak, like a run-of-the-mill Hollywood movie

* all the 'surprises' were predictable well in advance due to obvious setups

* an ending that was truly bad, bad, bad (and also predictable)

There were lots of smaller complaints, like gratuitous sex that did nothing to drive the narrative, or the film's length overstaying it's welcome (it had the "but wait, there's more" syndrome), and probably others that I've forgotten already. My opinion on this one was pretty much agreed upon by the others I sat with, all serious film-goers.