Heartbreaker

Watching Beautiful Lies somehow made me recall this other French romantic comedy, L'arnacœur, which I caught last November. Didn't get down to blogging about it (intended to) as other things got in the way. 

In the story, Alex (Romain Duris), his sister (Julie Ferrier) and her husband (François Damiens), operate a business designed to break up relationships, but only where the woman is "not knowingly unhappy." They are usually hired by the women's brother(s) or father(s) who know the men are not good for them but are so blinded by love at that time. Alex, being the young and suave man, is of course the "heartbreaker" or "seducer" in these jobs. At the end of each job, he will cook up an excuse to let the women go find their true love after discovering what they look for in a relationship. They are quite a sophisticated team, with cutting edge equipment (for surveillance) and the "props" for the job.

They receive a job from a very wealthy man (a gangster) who wants them to break up his daughter, Juliette (Vanessa Paradis) and her fiance, a successful Englishman. However, the couple seemed perfect, as both are perfectly in love and they could find no flaw in the man or the relationship, which seems the most compatible match, which is not really what their company wants to break up. However, Alex, who is heavily in debt from a loanshark (as a result of overspending on-the-job) takes it up anyway and is assigned as "bodyguard" to Juliette. So in standard romantic comedy flow, he really falls in love with her and she too falls for him. And they finally get together. (you can read more from the link above lah).

The twist comes at the end when the closing scene shows that the loanshark was actually working for Juliette's father! So it was a win-win for him. Technically, he didn't spend a single cent to hire Alex.

Anyway, I wouldn't say the love story is super unique, but sometimes, you don't really need to have too many frills to just enjoy a simple romantic comedy for what it is.