Product Details

• Actors: Jeanne Moreau, Claire Danes, Jude Law, James Van Der Beek, Kris Park
• Directors: Billy Hopkins
• Writers: Wendy Kesselman
• Producers: Bob Weinstein, Cameron McCracken, Frank Henschke, Gerhard Hegele, Glen Trotiner
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Walt Disney Video
• VHS Release Date: April 3, 2001
• Run Time: 88 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6305006547
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #259,298 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Sadly, playwright Wendy Kesselman's sensitive story about anti-Semitism is rather forcibly directed by former casting agent Billy Hopkins, as if this were not so much a feature film as a glorified after-school special for TV. Despite that, the film largely works on the strength of its two leads: Claire Danes, who plays a young Jewish girl identified as such at her private, coed high school, and Jeanne Moreau, who plays her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. As Danes's character is increasingly shunned and becomes a target of bigotry and vandalism, Moreau's loving grandma helps keep her from going over the edge.

The film also concerns the high price of being different on many fronts. Not only is Danes's young heroine dissimilar to her friends because she's Jewish, she's also intense, keenly intelligent, and a poetry lover. When she falls for a callow stud at school who worries about the opinion of his idiotic friends, she feels for the first time the pain of being rejected for being who she is. Moreau is magnificent as the lifelong survivor who knows when to give her granddaughter refuge and when to push her into the real world to find her own footing. Danes's performance reads like a map of increasingly exciting things to come in her career; there are moments in this film when you look at her and can see the consummate actress in her future. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for teachers. Overwhelmed by past, teen looks 4 self., November 7, 2002

By 

Kelly Mathews - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Love You, I Love You Not (DVD)

This would be an excellent DVD for teachers or for discussion with a young people's group, christian, Jewish or any faith about how disturbing it can be to deal with the past. In this case, Claire Danes is a young woman plagued with visions about her grandmothr's past as a holocaust survivor and how the stories her grandmother tells her parallel her own life. Not telling anyone even her grandmother of the disturbing line she is walking between feeling mad and sane because of her imagination and desire which she doesn't know how to deal with, the edgeyness of the performances continues to a worthy climax as we learn more.
Her parents are away on a vacation and have left her with her grandmother who is an accepting, loving person, who helps her accept her identity. One great scene, is when Danes, opens to her grandmother and begins to trust another human beng, by revealing what she thinks about sex. Jude Law is okay in his role, but the two women, Claire Danes and Jeanne Moreau, really stand out in this one. Sometimes I wonder if Claire was reading lots of Sylvia Plath for inspiration for at times the movie feels like an untold part of Plath's biography, a missing link, as it were, though it is not at all intended that way. Some of the scenes may not have the smoothest transition. Perhaps the director didn't quite know what was to be done with Jude Law's character, whether to make him a caring human baing or a shallow person who acts as though he has no problems of his own, but perhaps that's part of being a teenager.
It was superb, however in the parallel in the heroine's mind between her life and grandmother's. I gave it five stars for the climax when heroine faces the angel of death and the acting by two female leads. Good as a suspense/romance film, as well.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kelli reviews "I Love You, I Love You Not", May 21, 2000

By 

Kelli Kougher (Greenville, Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Love You I Love You Not [VHS] (VHS Tape)

If you like Claire Danes, you'll like this movie. She gives a very moving performance as Daisy, an adolescent who is ignored by her parents and enjoys spending time with her cool grandmother. Julia Stiles, Jude Law, and James Van Der Beek also appear. I enjoyed this film because it deals with something we all go through directly or indirectly in our lives--judging people because of what they are, not who they are. Claire's performance, as always, is magnetic and real.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To grandmother's we will go!, February 13, 2001

By 

Cami (Southern Indiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Love You I Love You Not [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Although this movie does deal with Anti-Semitism, it apparently is not dark enough for some of its viewers. Perhaps they were looking for another "Schindler's List." This movie focuses on a teenage girl and the impact her grandmother's Holocaust stories have on her. Although the grandmother's flashbacks of Nazi Germany are tragic, no violent imagery is shown. This is a very admirable trait in a movie--the ability to illustrate a horrible event without graphic violence!

There are many lovely aspects of this film. Daisy (Claire Danes) is an only child. Her parents are so in love with each other that they often unintentionally ignore their daughter. Fortunately, Daisy finds all the love she needs in the arms of her eccentric grandmother, played by Jeanne Moreau. Daisy's grandmother lives in a beautiful countryside. North Rhine Westphalia (Germany) provides the wonderful scenery for most of this picture, even though the story is supposedly set in New York. Daisy and her grandmother share wonderful weekends of card playing, reading classics, picking flowers, eating pancakes, and other cozy passtimes! From a carousel tucked away in a big city to an old bookstore in the middle of the forest, many scenes in this film have a fairytale-like quality. This movie is very charming but at the same time successfully deals with issues of love and prejudice. I would recommend this to anyone who likes "girlie" movies.

Unfortuntely, this movie didn't sit too well with my boyfriend. Perhaps I shouldn't have gawked at Jude Law (the hunk from "The Talented Mr. Ripley"), who by the way is in this movie too! As usual, Claire Danes gives a stunning performance. This movie has five-star quality! Buy it today!