There is a line, perhaps thin, perhaps not, between insulting a viewer's intelligence by excessive explanation of character motivation in a film, and leaving a viewer completely baffled by exhibiting bizarre behavior for which there appears no plausible motivation, and there is nothing in the screenplay to give us a clue as to why the characters acted as they did. True art consists of exactly the right balance: leaving enough clues in the script to give us at least a hint of why characters act as they do, without hitting us over the head with it and overexplaining.
This bizarre French film falls firmly in the camp of underexplanation. We meet two friends, Nathalie and Louise, as young women, and early in the film, Louise abruptly cuts off Nathalie completely, without explanation to either her or us. Louise doesn't even tell Nathalie herself; she leaves it to her mother to tell Nathalie that she doesn't want to see her again. An unspecified number of years later, but when both are adults and Louise is a dentist and Nathalie an up and coming actress, Louise looks up Nathalie after a performance, and after a rocky start, the friendship is resumed. At this point the film's title becomes the spoiler, because we know that the act of dumping is going to occur again. The only suspense lies in who is going to dump whom this time around. The women go to bed together a couple of times, but in both cases this is really a sideline to their heterosexual interests. Sure enough, another dumping does occur, again without any apparent motivation or explanation, although I won't tell you who dumps whom this time since most people who read this will have already seen the film. In case you haven't, it seems to be shown occasionally on cable on the Sundance Channel, which is where I saw it. If you live in the US, chances of seeing it in a theater are nil, since it doesn't appear to have received any kind of commercial release in the US.
The problem with this film is the screenplay. It is well acted by the two leads and the supporting cast, well directed, and has good location shots in Paris and Copenhagen. The director should have sent the screenplay back for revision so that a coherent story could have been developed. As it stands now, this film is only of minor interest--perhaps if you are a Beart-ophile, as I am--but otherwise it's pointless drivel.
This bizarre French film falls firmly in the camp of underexplanation. We meet two friends, Nathalie and Louise, as young women, and early in the film, Louise abruptly cuts off Nathalie completely, without explanation to either her or us. Louise doesn't even tell Nathalie herself; she leaves it to her mother to tell Nathalie that she doesn't want to see her again. An unspecified number of years later, but when both are adults and Louise is a dentist and Nathalie an up and coming actress, Louise looks up Nathalie after a performance, and after a rocky start, the friendship is resumed. At this point the film's title becomes the spoiler, because we know that the act of dumping is going to occur again. The only suspense lies in who is going to dump whom this time around. The women go to bed together a couple of times, but in both cases this is really a sideline to their heterosexual interests. Sure enough, another dumping does occur, again without any apparent motivation or explanation, although I won't tell you who dumps whom this time since most people who read this will have already seen the film. In case you haven't, it seems to be shown occasionally on cable on the Sundance Channel, which is where I saw it. If you live in the US, chances of seeing it in a theater are nil, since it doesn't appear to have received any kind of commercial release in the US.
The problem with this film is the screenplay. It is well acted by the two leads and the supporting cast, well directed, and has good location shots in Paris and Copenhagen. The director should have sent the screenplay back for revision so that a coherent story could have been developed. As it stands now, this film is only of minor interest--perhaps if you are a Beart-ophile, as I am--but otherwise it's pointless drivel.