Product Details

• Actors: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Yvan Attal, Charles Berling, Thibault de Montalembert, Élodie Navarre
• Directors: Marion Vernoux
• Writers: Dodine Herry, Marion Vernoux, Julian Barnes
• Producers: Françoise Galfré, Patrick Godeau
• Format: Color, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Fox Lorber
• DVD Release Date: April 25, 2000
• Run Time: 105 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00004R611
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #138,010 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Love Etc." visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Marion Vernoux's romantic drama Love Etc. is based on a novel by Julian Barnes, but it echoes Truffaut's Jules and Jim (in spirit more than plot) in its examination of an impossible ménage à trois. Shy Yvan Attal and unlucky-in-love Charlotte Gainsbourg meet through a personal ad. Attal sent a picture of his handsome best friend, confident womanizer Charles Berling, but it matters little as they fall for each other's charm and sincerity. Inevitably, Berling joins the couple and the trio pals around until the marriage, when the outwardly confident but secretly lonely and desperate Berling realizes he too loves Gainsbourg and begins hounding her. Vernoux gets the best from her cast: Gainsbourg's awkward beauty and Attal's ruffled passivity create a sweetly believable couple, but there is room for lingering doubt. Berling has a lock on self-centered intellectuals in the French film industry, but here reveals a sad desperation and jealousy in his performance. Vernoux's light touch and playful asides suspend the film in a state of romantic comfort before the inevitable, sympathetic, but painful climax. What gives her modest tale character is the loving attention she gives each of the lovers and the generous, unexpected coda she rewards them--and us--with. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When betrayal feels right.., May 13, 2000

By 

_starchild_ - See all my reviews

This review is from: Love Etc. (DVD)

If you are deceived at the very 1st step, how would you feel? If the picture that comes as a reply for your ad belongs not to the sender but to a close friend of his, does it mean that you are deceived? How would you react when "that" close friend of your husband says he is in love with you? Are in you love with your husband or the man in "that" picture? If you do feel deceived at the 1st step, would you admit it & enjoy adultery?

Marie, Benoit & Pierre form this infernal triangle with touching humour. Freely based on Barnes' novel "Talking it Over", Vernoux depicts an unforgettable romantic comedy, sometimes reaching the shores of a heart-wrenching drama. The artistry of Vernoux, however, is the way of juxtaposing these three different persons (and their different paths in reaching love) where the major virtues (or flaws) of being human become the intersection points. Surprisingly enough, the viewer feels close to the all three characters, appreciates & understands their motives, though the happiness of one means misery to the other. It is very striking to see how one can hurt the very dear ones with the pursuit of love & the bliss it brings. Vernoux, just like Barnes, frames this complexity in the lives of these three comical characters and, without being formal, harsh & biased, underpins the emotional havoc love can escort.

In fact, both the novel & the film mostly deal with the "etc." part, not the "love" part. After all, all emotions can blacken and/or become bitter with the "spicy" accumulation of these small "etc."s. This is actually what Marie, Benoit & Pierre experience. They hide, they deceive and they wish to find the love they deserve. Do they find it in the end? Well, they surely do, but it is shockingly (maybe preferably) different than the novel's original ending..

When it's about love, everything "seems" insignificant. Maybe that's when betrayal feels right..

Join in, and "Take This Waltz". It surely will linger in your mind for a long, long time..

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Tedium, etc., July 2, 2005

By 

Burrobaggy (Newcastle, home of footie) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Love Etc. (DVD)

A French adaptation of a Julian Barnes novel, this is a pretty basic and very tedious romantic triangle: when shy loser Yvan Attal hooks up with Charlotte Gainsbourg, his luck changes while his best friend Charles Berling's fortunes suffer reverses as he falls for her and bores passing strangers by telling them his hopes of how to win her. Unfortunately this seems to be by going for the Anakin Skywalker route of whining her into submission, as his tiresome self-pity gradually and inexplicably wins her over.

There are a few nice moments: a wedding photo in which all three reveal their innermost thoughts, one of Berling's captive confessors asking him "Don't you ever get tired of your bulls**t?" and Berling following his comparison of an affair being as unsatisfactory as a holiday in Marbella by his nervous rambling that "Actually, Marbella can be nice at this time of year. I went there once. It's best to go off season." Similarly, his dismissal of Leonard Cohen's genius by admitting he finds a lack of imagination in rhyming 'ay' with 'ay ay ay' neatly punctures Attal's tendency to play Cohen's waltz at every opportunity. Unfortunately they are few and far between, and Berling is astonishingly annoying here. You keep on waiting for someone to hit him, repeatedly (now there's an idea for a movie!), but it never happens. There is one great final confrontation when Attal confronts the two: his performance has real power here and the writing mirrors the ebb and flow and awkwardness of such moments. But it's not enough.

5.0 out of 5 stars Cultural Arts Center of Saint Louis recommends, July 7, 2009

By 

Linsey A. Daman (Saint Louis, MO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Love Etc. (DVD)

Marie meets Benoit through a personal ad. Touched by his shyness and the photo of his best friend Pierre that he sends with his response - Marie meets, courts and marries Benoit. During the wedding Pierre realizes that he too is in love with Marie. What follows is a tragic, sometime outlandish tale of two people trying to behave properly as they wreck the happiness of the other person most dear to them.

CAC's Comments: This tale is extremely comical while captivating its audience.