Review of Little White Lies (2010) by Mike M — 22 May 2011

Functions as a sunny crisis-generation machine... It could go on for four hours, it could go on for seven; it could become a Rivette-like experiment in filmed time without ever once getting out of third gear or working up any rigour or tension.

That I felt inclined to give it a pass is partly because it didn't annoy me as much as, say, "Peter's Friends" did, and mostly down to Canet's genial way with his performers, Cluzet in particular, who makes something funny out of the sight of a man heading inexorably towards a stroke; Cotillard somehow keeps real and grounded a character who might elsewhere have come over as an insufferable kook, and Lellouche achieves the tricky feat of getting us to empathise with a Law- or Brand-style love rat.

You should, however, be warned the approach towards performance is such you're expected to be moved, rather than irritated or dismayed, whenever anyone pulls out a guitar to trill a self-penned song, or when Canet invites his characters to sit round watching their old holiday videos.

Every bit as commercially savvy as the director's debut, it appears less inclined to epater the bourgeois than to pat them, altogether squarely, on the back. Group hug!