manhie I saw this movie last night. I like it very much. Sure, I know what the ending will be since I have watched so many of these love films. What really caught my attention was when Wendy telling Xavier that she loves him and that though he is imperfect (who is perfect), compared to Ed (her former boyfriend), Xavier is a day at the beach. She then tells him, that a lot of girls fall for the beauty and perfection of that person, and that is all they want to see. She looks beyond that, she falls for the imperfection and the defects of Xavier. In real life, most of us only care for the beauty and the nice things of the person we infatuate with. We gloss over the imperfections. Once the beauty has worn off, we then notice the imperfections which we dislike. Eventually it will lead to a fallout. In a way this movie taught us that love is when you look beyond the beauty and perfection, you find the defects and imperfection, somehow you still love that person. It is quite different from yes, he or she has imperfections and defects, but I will be able to change these once we are together.

cagdas-4 Well,I like the acting of Romain Duris and since L'Auberge Espagnole was a nice movie I was quite eager to watch Les Poupeés Russes.In general, I like the movie.There are not many movies that elaborate in such a way about European life and people in Europe.However like in L'Auberge Espagnole, I have some difficulties of understanding the logic of the director.Well talking about so deep things like love, how can they be so superficial about some facts about life?Well, the thing is, Romain Duris in the movie sleeps with many girls. And when she goes to kookai and meets the French girl from Senegal he says that it's the first time he approaches a girl in such a way.You think that he's a naive guy and if that's the first time he does such a thing, what is the logic behind him sleeping with many girls..This I really do not get!The director creates a somewhat inconsistent character.Secondly,when Wendy's brother is marrying, there are only Wendy's friends whom he met in Barcelona for the wedding.Well, that's one thing I hate about movies!Doesn't this guy have any other friends?And in the first movie most of the people didn't like him at all but eventually just so that they'll be together in St.Petersburg, the director brings them together there.This is really superficial.I think that the directors should think about those kinds of details.Those were 2 things that caught my attention and L'Auberge Espagnole also had those kinds of flaws.However overall, I must say that I like the movie

a11_msp "L'auberge espagnole", although not flawless and very low-key, is probably one of the best films about nostalgia ever made. In "Les poupées russes", the main character of both films, Xavier (Duris), has coped well with his post-Erasmus nostalgia. However, what seemed, at the end of "L'auberge", to be both a cure and a new beginning has turned out to be much less of the latter. Xavier is nearly thirty and his life still badly needs focus.The film follows Xavier from Paris to London to Moscow to Saint-Petersburg, examining relationships with his ex-Erasmus friends (many of whom look like they got a hold on life better than himself), his ex-girlfriend Martine (Tautou) and various new lovers. The sceneries are exciting and the characters are crafted perhaps with even more care and sincerity than in "L'auberge" (the Duris-Tautou "still friends" duo is a delight) - but the romantic allure of "L'auberge" served well to smoothen the rough edges and dilute the film's hard-boiled message - writer-director Cédric Klapisch is definitely a man of ideas more than anything else. "Les poupées" is no less cerebral, but with the grown-up life being what it is, there's much less in the film to get carried away with - meaning that at times it becomes more of a philosophical drama than a romantic comedy. And for that purpose, perhaps the philosophical message that the film tries to convey - that letting go of dreams is a sad, but necessary part of growing up - is simply not strong enough.

TxMike (Preface comment: I strongly recommend seeing 'The Spanish Apartment' first, as it is a prelude to this movie.)Before I saw the movie the title brought to mind pretty, young Russian women, perhaps the object of desire of non-Russiam men. But that is far from it. The title is a reference to the atom 'Russian Dolls' where successively smaller dolls are nested inside each other. We only learn this near the end, when the main character, Xavier, compares life and love to Russian Dolls. Each time you encounter one (woman, in his case) you wonder if that is the final one, or is there another waiting for you. In fact, the story is mainly of Xavier's trying to make sense out of life, out of his job as a writer, and trying to figure out who he is supposed to love.The story moves around to three main locations, Paris, London, and Moscow. The cinematography is very interesting, sometimes using a type of time-lapse photography to compress an activity. Romain Duris is very good as the young writer Xavier Rousseau. He gets paired with fellow writer, a Brit named Wendy, to translate a TV script from his French writing into English, and there sometimes appear to be romantic sparks between them. But Xavier always seems to be searching for that next lady, the 'perfect' one. He seems to find it in a beautiful model that he is assigned to help write her story. Audrey Tautou is also good in a minor role as Martine, one of Xavier's former loves.There actually is a Russian story also. Brit Kevin Bishop plays William, who is working as a lighting technician in Russia when he meets up with Natacha (Evguenya Obraztsova, really a Russian ballerina) and falls for her. He eventually goes away, learns Russian, and returns to try to get her to marry him. He succeeds.The movie is comedic, for the most part, but does have the serious theme of finding one's love in life. In one funny scene, Xavier's girlfriend Neus suddenly gets out of bad during the late night hours, naked, and proceeds to go into the street. He follows her, also naked, and this turns into a funny scene with him running after her, catching up with her, and both going back to his place, while a fully-dressed couple walk by them. SPOILERS. In the end, Xavier realizes who he really is, and what life and love are really about, and settles in with Wendy, the writer.