Customer Reviews

Love Street ( Rue des plaisirs ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - France ]

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Rue des Plaisirs is one of Patrice Leconte's occasional misfires. Framed as `Pigalle Dany Rose,' with a trio of streetwalkers on a rainy street relaying the story of the son of a prostitute who determines to find the right man to make the new girl at the brothel where he was raised happy, there's more than a touch of The Hairdresser's Husband to it, not least in the intercutting of Patrick Timsit's character as man and child, but there's none of the sensuality despite some potentially promising setups. Among the chief problems is Laetitia Casta, who simply lacks the presence or allure to make the role work: her manner is generally sullen, her acting poor and her singing voice weak, so it's hard to see what the attraction is for such a one-note personality and little surprise that there's not a hint of chemistry with either of her leading men. Still, as Leconte has said in the past, the advantage of making relatively short feature films is that if you bore the audience, at least you don't bore them for that long.

If you don't speak French, be sure to only order the Canadian DVD since the French DVD has no English subtitles. Seville's Canadian DVD boasts a nice 2.35:1 widescreen transfer with optional English subtitles plus an unsubtitled 45-minute documentary (where Casta displays all the lightness and appeal that she so sorely lacks in the feature) and the original French trailer.