Heartbreaker (L'arnacoeur)

It has taken over 100 movies for me to get to this mark. But I am finally here. This is my first review for an international movie. And it is French. I always thought I would start with something like a Kurosawa or maybe a Truffaut or a Bergman. But that was not to be. I had been checking out the posters of 2 movies – Heartbreaker (L'arnacoeur) & Sarah’s Key (Elle s'appelait Sarah) for over 2 weeks now and my curiosity had to get the better of me when I decided to go for the former last afternoon. Had to start with a French RomCom – just like me I guess.


Alex Lipi (Romain Duris) has a peculiar profession. He works with his strike team of his sister Melanie (Julie Ferrier) and her husband Marc (Francois Damiens). Together their job is to break up relationships. You heard me right – you have a friend who you believe is in a relationship with totally the wrong guy (yes, the service extends only to women) for her. Not that the guy is the worst in the world (he could be also) and your friend / sister / daughter / relative is unable to see the worst coming up in her life then – who u gonna call? Alexi Lippi and Co. The method that they use – seduction. They go about their roles like artists starting with indepth research on the subject using a variety of methods including those as complex as bugging to as basic as acting as beggars and trying to figure out the signs that are important. However they do work with some basic principles. They will not get into situations that involve racial or religious aspects involved. Alex never sleeps with the women. And most importantly, they step in only if the woman is unhappy. They just focus on opening their eyes to the situation primarily by showing her what she is missing out.

Now the artists are having trouble with cash flow thanks to their principles and Alex’s ways of borrowing money from the local money lenders. They find themselves needing 20K + 30K = 50K Euros to bail themselves out of trouble. When the local highly successful florist (read Mafia gang leader) Van Der Becq (Jacques Frantz) calls on the team to break up his daughter’s upcoming wedding, the team refuse on principle. Juliette Van Der Becq (Vanessa Paradis) and Johnathan Alcott (Andrew Lincoln) are extremely happy together and are about to get married in about 10 days time. But their initial research shows that there is no way they would be able to break up the wedding on two counts – the fact that the 2 of them are extremely happy and the challenge of not being able to do so in the time provided. But desperate times call for desperate measures and the need for money (read death threats) ensures that principles are superceded and the team starts off on the challenging task of breaking up a happy relationship.

French or not, Heartbreaker (L'arnacoeur) is just your average RomCom with several mushy scenes and is peppered with overacting and lack of acting. Romain Duris, it would seem never wanted to be an actor and got into it out of sheer good luck. Not that he is pathetic but other than his rugged looks, there doesn’t seem to be too much to look forward to. He just about makes the cut. Vanessa Paradis is skinny as hell and should do something about making sure that the gap in her teeth is filled up – it doesn’t look cute Vanessa and it will not bring you tremendous good luck. From an acting perspective, the performances from Julie Ferrier and Francois Damiens is far better than our lead pair. No random story telling or inconsistencies but Pascal Chaumeil doesn’t give us something that you haven’t see before per se. In fact the climax seems to be heavily inspired from It Happened One Night and for our desi crowd – Dil Hai Ki Maanta Nahin. All in all, an average RomCom as mentioned earlier. Funny in parts. 5 on 10.