Review of Love (2015) by Lovro H — 03 Jan 2016

Had potential...but wastes it on cheap publicity stunts and a plot that goes nowhere.

A man, Murphy, is stuck in a dead-end relationship with a woman he doesn't love. The couple also have an unplanned young son, adding to Murphy's feelings of being trapped. He starts to think of his previous girlfriend - Electra, how perfect everything was, and how and why everything fell apart. Then he learns that she has disappeared...

The movie had potential. The intrigue of the disappearance of Electra, the regret that their (perfect) relationship didn't work out, the suffocating relationship he is currently in, his depression over where everything has ended up - these all made for some interesting potential paths for the movie.

But, alas, it was not meant to be.

None of these threads go anywhere. In the end, nothing is resolved and there is no point to the whole long exercise. And, yes, it is a long exercise - 2 1/4 hours, with about half of that made up of padding. So many scenes which add nothing to the movie, and just make you more bored.

From the start you know it is going to be a long, drawn-out affair - the pacing is slow from the beginning - but you hope to be rewarded with something profound at the end. No such luck.

What the movie will be most remembered for is its explicit sex scenes. While not really that new anymore (Nine Songs, anyone?), many of the scenes are just there for shock / controversy / publicity value.

Sad to see that Gaspar Noe has ended up making pretentious crap like this. Irreversible was brilliant and heralded Noe as director to be followed. However, since then he hasn't made a decent movie. His previous movie, Enter the Void, was even more pointless and pretentious than Love. He is turning out to be a one-hit wonder.