How Much Do You Love Me? (2005)

This is one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen. Usually that is a reason for me to like a movie, but in this case, the movie was so absurd, that simply everything got destroyed. Characters, conversations, story - simply everything, absurd, unrealistic even silly and pathetic. I felt like watching a movie created by a senile man, that totally lost track of the reality.

I guess this movie wanted to be funny, sadly it didn't even make me smile. I guess this movie wanted to be romantic and passionate, but it felt artificial and wasn't convincing at any point. I guess the movie wanted to teach us something... I failed to get it. If I would have at least understood a message the film wants to give us, I might have accepted it as art and would have accepted all the absurdity along with it. If the jokes would have been funny, I could have accepted the movie as comedy. - All I did during the movie, was to shake my head. This movie didn't offer anything to me beside some beautiful and sexy pictures of Monica Beluci. Even the great actors (I mainly mean Gerard Depardieu) have not been able to save this movie.

Fmovies: Body (and look!) of Monica Belucci is stunning (as usually), but her role is poor - charming whore who wants to have respect and love, but finding that discovers it boring, escapes back to his soulless gigolo (Depardieu), and misses back her lover's gentle touch, returns to face a truth that he isn't rich... one truly understands frustration of other women at dancing party - "why everybody loves her?!" - again because of that body and those eyes. On the other hand, playing of Campan (Francois) is astonishing, it is probably on of his best roles (regretfully it was my first encounter), though I wish him t have better ones too! overall good movie to watch it once, and I'm sure every man returns to it to observe that beauty, that stunning whore... 7, not more... . Milena was something so much sweeter...

I love French cinema, but I was rather disappointed by this movie. The most positive thing about this movie is beautiful and erotic Bellucci taking her clothes off but the plot is so poor I can't understand Gerard Depardieu playing such a one-dimensional person.

The dialogs are sometimes ridiculous, maybe unintentionally because of the bad German synchronization I watched. It is not enough to play classical opera music instead of creating a convincing dramaturgy and script.

But to mention some positive aspects as well, there are plenty of breathtaking stills like Bellucci sitting in the window of the bar in Pigalle or "Francois" and "Daniela" at the beach, so the movie offers, as French cinema often does, excellent aesthetic quality. Accepting that this is cinema showing totally artificial characters, you might have a good time watching this movie.

How Much Do You Love Me? fmovies. What a disappointment. I was expecting much more from a film coming from Bertrand Blier, who has made Tenue de Soir in the 80s, and a bunch of reasonable films since. Having Depardieu and the mind-blowing Monica Belucci in the film was not certainly enough.

All the film turns around Monica Belucci. Sure, such a beauty makes man die for and can make them pay millions or kill for, the issue is that the characters in this film seem to be willing to do exactly this, and this is the whole story, not much more. One of the reasons of failure is I believe the cast. Bernard Campan in the role of the gray clerk who wins the lottery and intents to buy a beautiful Italian whore for the rest of his life is lacking charisma, and there is no chemistry between him and Monica Belucci. In other words, I can certainly understand him, but I cannot understand her, and the whole intended love story is less than credible.

All around dance a bunch of characters who fail to be coherent enough, or funny, or to be able to collect any sympathy. Even Gerard Depardieu who is an actor who seemed not to be able to do wrong looks like mis-cast. Actually all characters seem under-developed, and if it were not for Monica Belucci's beauty and talent (almost completely wasted here) the film would have sunk into complete failure. It gets a few stars however, and all belong to Belucci.

I've watched the Depardieu-Blier films all the way back to VALSEUSES and enjoyed them so I came at this one believing all the knocking comment must be wrong.

Well it's certainly not a dead loss. Campan registers in a tricky role acquiring Pigalle poule de luxe Bellucci and taking her back to his office worker flat, despite his shaky health and down at heel associates and this part plays quite well.

Surprisingly, it's when an aged Depardieu doing "vieux jeu con" shows up that things become strained. Well with a record like this, these guys are entitled to one screw up.

The film is by no means a write-off with the changes of light, background and costume within scenes getting attention until you realize that, if they have any meaning, Blier is not going to share it with us. The opera score has oddity value and the small parts are striking. Farida Rahouadj's turn as the Northern neighbour is particularly attention getting.

It's a pity to find this one getting international showing on the strength of its star power, in place of more imposing product.

In Paris, after winning the lottery, the clerk François (Bernard Campan) goes to a bar in Pigalle and offers one hundred thousand Euros per month to the prostitute Daniela (Monica Bellucci) to live with him until the end of his money. François is a lonely man, with heart problems and Daniela stays with him for eight days. Then, she decides to come back to her man, the mobster Charly (Gérard Depardieu), but she misses François and returns to his place. But once a whore, always a whore.

The promising "Combien Tu m'Aimes?" is a great deception: having Monica Bellucci, Gérard Depardieu and Bernard Campan in the cast, and directed by Bertrand Blier, this "dramatic romantic comedy" has a weird development and a confused and disappointing open conclusion. I honestly did not understand the last quarter of this movie, which is simply awful. The screenplay wastes a good and original idea, and the character of Gérard Depardieu is absolutely dull and ridiculous. The beauty of Monica Bellucci, even with forty-one years, is the best this mislead movie can offer. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Por Amor ou Por Dinheiro?" ("For Love or For Money?")