jotix100 Lucas, a powerful entrepreneur, has commissioned a ceramic artist to create a center piece in the lobby where his offices are located. He is a demanding man not using to hearing the word NO from anyone of his employees. Elsa, the artist working on the project, clashes with Lucas as they first meet because he has no clue of what her work will be like when finished. Elsa walks out on the assignment, not before attracting the attention of Lucas.In order to keep control in his business, Lucas employs Roland, a sort of security man, who knows a lot about espionage and how to get whatever his boss demands. It becomes clear Lucas admires Elsa's spunk. Reality sets in when Elsa realizes without this job she is in danger of losing her precious oven, so she returns. Lucas, who wants to know all about the artist, sends Roland to place spying devices all over her apartment.Elsa finds herself flattered by the attention she is getting, but has no clue of Lucas' shenanigans. It will not take long before this pair finds they are in love with each other despite his duplicity and her reluctance to become involved."Can't This be Love" is an inspired French comedy by Pierre Jovilet, who co-wrote the screenplay with Simon Michael. The film keeps moving at a good speed, helped by the sure writing and the excellent cast assembled for the film. Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Bonnaire play the romantic pair, and one could not expect less from both these stars that have an easy chemistry that helps the success of the film. Francois Berleand, Kad Merad and the rest of the supporting players do good work for M. Jovilet.

richard_sleboe Treading in the footsteps of "Mr Brooks" and "Sleuth", "Could This Be Love?" is this year's second movie about both ceramic glazing and universal remote controls. Like Kevin Costner's character in "Mr Brooks", Elsa (Sandrine Bonnaire) is a strong-willed type with a passion for pottery. Like Michael Caine's character in "Sleuth", Lucas (Vincent Lindon) tries and fails to shield himself from the world with the help of remote-controlled gadgetry. It's not at all clear what they see in each other, but what the hack. Elsa is a bit too sure of herself for a struggling artist, but her sumo wrestler friend Yakeshi (Brian Bigg) adds a refreshing, if goofy touch of the surreal. Newcomer Clémentine Poidatz is pretty cute in the part of Elsa's cousin Marina. Guest appearance by Venantino Venantini in the part of the Della Ponte, the pope of pottery.

writers_reign This is yet another of those 'little' films the French do so well and nobody else seems to do at all. It' never going to set the world on fire and, to be fair, it never aspires to; there are no 'showcase' roles and nobody feels the need to chew the scenery, it's just a small, solid entertainment with the leads placed in two of the safest pairs of hands in the business, Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Bonnaire, who are given top-class support by an ensemble headed by Francois Berleand and Kad Merad. Director Philippe Jolivet worked with Bonnaire on his last movie but one, Filles Uniques, which was in similar vein. The plot, such as it is, features Lindon as head of a large company which has hired Bonnaire to create a large piece of ceramic Art for the foyer. Clearly knowing a lovely girl when he sees one he falls for her but because he has once been bitten (his ex wife was heavily into Industrial Espionage) he is twice shy so he prevails on the Head of Security, Francois Berleand, to both check out her background and bug her apartment. With this much information you can write the rest yourself and chances are you'd be right on the money but as I keep saying it's all in the wrist and the wrists involved here are as supple as they come. A lovely way to spend an evening.

moimoichan6 Pierre Jolivet is an interesting director, able direct any kind of movie, whatever its genre is : autobiographical drama ("Strictement Personel"), social movie ("Fred"), low budged fantastic ("simple mortel") or SF ("The last combat", with Luc Besson), or medieval action feature ("Le fils du guerrier"). And, as all this movies were made with the same serious, you know that, when he makes a romantic comedy like "Could this be love" - sorry, but because of my previous french movies enumeration, and for french is considered as "spelling mistakes" by IMDb, I have to tittle the movies in English...- , it will be nicely done (by that, I mean that it certainly will bellow to the genre that François Truffaut called, with irony, "cinema de qualité française"). And like his other movies, it is. But like his other movies, it also unfortunately doesn't really archive to be absolutely interesting and great. Once again, this movie is the proof that french contemporary romantic comedies, like this one or the latest Christian Vincent or Pierre Salvadori, will never reach their American models (and by that I mean movies from the 40's to the 60's, for it's definitely better than than an American garbage like "The Hollyday").The movie deals with a rich enterprise boss (Vincent Lindon) who falls in love with an independent woman (Sandrine Bonnaire), who was hire by him as an artist in order to create a ceramic painting for his enterprise. But, for he's a paranoiac control freak, who's unable to trust a woman since a bad experience (his ex wife worked for a adverse enterprise and spied him for years), he asks the firm's chief of security (François Berléand in a perfect role) to watch her. And as he goes a little to far in his role, this situation will create incontrollable and huge problems. The script is the perfect pretext to explore, in a comical and funny way, what Jolivet called "the fear of love", witch is the ability we all have, in front of love, to find ways to avoid it, only guided by the fear to suffer (for a more ample and a little pretentious explanation of this concept, you can read the interview of Pierre Jolivet in the french cinema revue : Positif 552, who also praises the movie). The situations are generally quite funny and credible, certainly thanks to the commitment of the actors to their characters. But the characters might really be the problem here : if Lindon's is very rich and eccentric (therefor interesting), Sandrine Bonnaire's one is a little too... hum, let's say normal. It's not really the actress' fault, for, except for showing a brightly smile, she doesn't have anything much to do, and seems really boring in front of her masculine partner. If he's exuberant, paranoiac, maniac, depressive, self centered and yet moving, she is..., well, allergic to cat, and that's about it. And, in order to have a good romantic comedy, the two protagonists have to be equally interesting (ie : Carry Grant AND Catherine Heptburn), and give the impression to really match with one another. And if only one of the two characters works, only half the movie is really enjoyable.