Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

iva gospic I highly recommend this movie to everyone who likes to watch romantic movies - but with one warning : this is a French movie which means there's nothing typical about it.By now I have watched it a couple of times, and every time I discover one more layer to it.The actors (always wonderful Louis Garrel, and the others also), the plot , Paris itself and the simply wonderful music ( after watching this you'll most certainly download the soundtrack)...I love everything about it.I wish I could be in your place right now, and have the opportunity to watch this movie for the first time! If you like french movies - don't miss this one!

DICK STEEL In the running for the Palme d'Or in last year's Cannes Film Festival, Love Songs by Christophe Honore was nothing like what the writeup used in the festival synopsis would have let you believe. Either that, or I'm really dense to have trusted what was essentially a verbatim recap of only the first of three segments that this movie was split into – Departure, Absence and Return.Rather than dwell on the non-existent and off screen manège-a-trios, it's more of a tale of grief and the handling of grief after personal tragedy. It seemed like an exploration of venturing into the extremes, of being experimental for the sheer thrill of it, of trying to lead a vastly different lifestyle in other to drown all memories of the deceased, of numbing oneself in excessive, meaningless sex. I would have welcomed the viewpoints of family members in depth, as the movie did spend some time to set up those characters, only to have relegated them with sideshow treatment, nothing more than caricatures from parents who try to engage their child's friends in order to discover hidden secrets unknown to them, to siblings who hang around trying to come to grips with the loss, only to find some questionable , eyebrow raising antics leading to assumptions and quick conclusions.As a musical, the songs did feel a little out of place when the characters start to break into them, and seriously, I thought the lyrics could have been lost in translation, as sometimes I could not see how they either move the narrative forward, or speak from the heart the innermost thoughts from the characters mouthing those words. At some points it really felt a little bit forced, and have left one wondering about the relevance of those phrases sung, so while the meaning have probably been lost in me, it might be of relevance to French speakers.While the movie stars Louis Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier and Clotilde Hesme, the bulk of the screen time belonged to Garrel's Ismael. The threesome relationship between their characters weren't exactly explained, only that they are strange bedfellows sharing their nights together. While Sagnier's Julie did reveal her uneasiness at such an arrangement, Hesme's Alice already knows of the boundaries within their relationships that she cannot cross, and as they toy around those forbidden lines, any sense of angst and unhappiness get sung away quite fleetingly.In short, it's a film that lacked some crucial emotional punch, preferring to just scratch the surface and try to get away with it. Definitely trying to appeal to the niche crowd with its dalliances with hetero/lesbian/gay themes, but ultimately, came across as very forced and pretentious, trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole, if you can pardon the pun. Disappointing stuff.

writers_reign It is, of course, possible that I watched a different film to the previous posters, it is equally possible that the previous posters have never seen a Real musical or, indeed a Real French film. Suffice it to say that were it not for Brigitte Rouan and Chirara Mastroianni this would have been a total disaster. If ever two young people deserved each other those people are Ludo Sagnier and Lou Garrel - and if he would hit on Ludo off-screen and keep away from Valeria I'd be a much happier bunny. Christophe Honore has a penchant for sleaze and chances are he figured that the problem with his Ma Mere was that it needed saccharine music and lyrics to disguise the sleaze (Ma Mere, in case you missed it was the one where Lou Garrel got off with his ma, Isabelle Huppert and masturbated beside her corpse though on reflection I guess music and lyrics couldn't have done that much to save it) so this time around he laces the down-market sex with interchangeable melodies having only a beat rather than a tune and lyrics as banal as those Demy wrote for Les Paraplueis de Cherbourg. On the other hand there are some nice location shots of Paris but even here Honore can't resist having Sagnier check out a movie at the Brady, a cinema where Catherine Breillat films play and where Deep Throat played for a couple of years. Go if you must.

merveillesxx In World Film Festival 2005, Alain Resnais's Not On The Lips (2003, B) gave me a good sleep, on the contrary, Honore's Love Song is such the film which I thoroughly enjoy. Consciously, I accept the nature of musical film (many friends of mine can't resist when the character suddenly sings a song), but the hardest part is the classical style of music (or an old-fashioned one). Fortunately, this film used the modern pop-rock music which is really my type.Love Songs is like a sequel for Inside Paris (2006, A+), still portrayed about Parisian people in intellectual way (mostly presented via the dialogs). The film always gave me a surprise, but the most interesting one is the third part that motioned about gay issue. From my experience, there are a lot of gay movies but I rarely see a gay musical film. The ending also made a sexual ideology of the film daringly explicit. But I can feel that many audiences can't accept the conclusion of Love Songs. But I desirably love it, very suitable of the title "Love Songs", because Love is the universal language.Things I can observe from Love Songs (It may be my wrong understanding) 1) The scenes that all three main characters sleeping on the same bed was possibly inspired from Scene from the Marriage (1973, Ingmar Bergman) 2) There was a "Nobody Knows" poster in the gay character's room. (I'm not sure about its purpose.)