Review of Little White Lies (2010) by Nicolas C — 01 Jun 2013

As the pitch above tells, this film is an "anti-buddy film": Canet wants to show us what it is like to have a band of buddies disaggregating because the one who was their social glue is missing. However, he fails on two accounts: firstly, Ludo/ Dujardin's absence from most of the film prevents us from understanding why these people considered themselves friends and, secondly, the ending is in total contradiction with the aim of the film.

Likewise, this so-called depicting of a generation (people who are in their 30s) totally fails to hit his mark. I didn't identify myself with these despicable, egoist people who behave like they are 15, especially Marion Cotillard who is ridiculous playing the part of the seemingly naive and emotional girl.

Nonetheless, Canet knows how to film: the opening scene is filmed in sequence-shot with great mastery and the video scenes from the previous holidays (viewed as vacation memories by the other characters) convey a sense of friendship, emotion and happiness otherwise lacking from the film.

In short, a good failure, one that propels me to continue to look out for Canet's and Dujardin's next films.