The most interesting thing about this movie is seeing how very like a Hollywood movie it was, in spite of being French. We have a very standard plot --- driven neat-freak boss interacts with laid-back messy slob, they fight, they interact some more, they fall in love.
Unfortunately we also get the standard problems with the genre:
I'd rate it as worth watching because of the exoticism, but as a US movie I'd have abandoned it after 15 min. The only thing that makes a movie like this worth watching is the comedy, and there simply wasn't enough of that to justify its existence in this genre.
On the positive side, the lead actress is a delight to watch. She's not exactly beautiful, but she carries, clothes , and projects herself so well that it doesn't matter. (Which makes it even more of a travesty to imagine that she'd settle for a slob in her life. In the last 10 minutes or so, you basically see her carriage melt away and I, for one, do not see this as a great triumph, an improvement in who she is.)
Unfortunately we also get the standard problems with the genre:
- No real reason is ever presented for why these two opposites would fall in love, apart from the fact that they spend some time in close proximity.
- The more unsavory aspects of the boss's behavior are excused as more or less acceptable in an artistic temperament (a fantasy Hollywood loves to tell us, and hopes we will one day believe, for rather obvious self-serving reasons).
- We're supposed to believe that our two adults, once they've found each other will compromise to both become driven (but not too driven) and neat (but not too neat); but it always seems to be that the driven, neat person has to compromise rather more than the disorganized slob...
I'd rate it as worth watching because of the exoticism, but as a US movie I'd have abandoned it after 15 min. The only thing that makes a movie like this worth watching is the comedy, and there simply wasn't enough of that to justify its existence in this genre.
On the positive side, the lead actress is a delight to watch. She's not exactly beautiful, but she carries, clothes , and projects herself so well that it doesn't matter. (Which makes it even more of a travesty to imagine that she'd settle for a slob in her life. In the last 10 minutes or so, you basically see her carriage melt away and I, for one, do not see this as a great triumph, an improvement in who she is.)