Review of Little White Lies (2010) by Gabriel H — 30 Apr 2011

This is a well made film, but to be honest it's just a bit boring. It's good to have a load of characters with human flaws and the discomfort of their friendship is quite realistic I think- these are people who are mainly friends by convenience; they don't seem to care about each other much, and just seem irritated spending too much time together. You get the impression lots of people's frienships are like this; strained and just there because they've crossed paths in life and got to familiar with each other's company rather than because they actually have shared interests, goals or chemistry- at least I hope most people's friendships aren't like this, who knows?

So the people are realistic in a way because they have flaws but just aren't sympathetic, and that's a bit of a problem for a film which revolves around 6 or 7 characters- if you don't care about any of them, what's the point of the film? There are comic moments (the growing tension of the guy who can't handle a bloke fancying him, the racoons or whatever they were, etc) but not enough to carry the film. The characters make what are clearly selfish decisions, yet don't seem to get much out of them (principle being abandoning their dying friend to go on a holiday which none of them seem to enjoy etc) so its a bit of a wonder why they're making them. All the characters are scared of emotional attachment (the girl who rejects the musician, the guy who sleeps around etc) so that's understable, or at least it would if it seemed like they were enjoying their lives without that commitment but their lives are clearly empty and unenjoyable. Maybe I'm old fashoned, but if you aren't enjoying your life and something important comes along, is commitment so scary that you'd prefer a life you hate to trying it? I don't think so- I think people avoid commitment when they actually enjoy having a life of no commitment, so the characters' failures don't hit home- they're being offered what they want and are only losing out because they're being spoiled brats about it, yet they're in their 30s- just grow up.

Then there's the fact that this is all painfully middle class. It's all fancy boats and people tending to them, yet none of them are anything special- if anything they're all a bit thick; at least if they were artistic types like the musician character is, we'd give them a bit of slack but basically they're people with no special talents, no interesting interests and more time, money and romantic opportunities than most of us get even though most of us are more interesting and try harder for other people, so sorry if I don't give a shit what happens to the characters. I mean the guy who turns up at his girlfriend's when he finds she's marrying somebody else and tells her he'll wait in the car and if she wants to be with him she has to come down by 7am or he's gone- he's just a bit of a self obsessed dunce throughout, and does a really bad job of selling to her why she should be with him instead, then she turns up in the morning (half an hour late- why hasn't he gone?) to be with him instead. So she really thought this through but just came down half an hour late on the offchance he was still there- if he'd gone, would she go upstairs and marry the other one? If she (or any of the characters) had an inch of depth to her, she'd marry NEITHER because she clearly isn't in to either of them and I dunno- shock horror, make a bit of effort to find her own life, interests and maybe even her own holiday because her reward for choosing dunce-man seems to be to join the most boring holiday in the world ever- good choice...

So in a nutshell- too long, awakwardly funny in parts (if only it was a straight awkward comedy it'd be a good film) and too long. If a film's about cardboard characters who do approximately nothing for the duration, at least have the decency to make it shorter. And why are all the songs in English- oh yeah, soundtrack sales. Is this how stupifyingly commercial French cinema has become?