Review by Jenny Priestley
Stars Romain Duris, Vanessa Paradis, Andrew Lincoln, Julie Ferrier, Francois Damiens, Héléna Noguerra,
Jacques Frantz, Amandine Dewasmes, Jean-Yves Lafesse | Written by Laurent Zeitoun & Jeremy Doner
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £19.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 105 minutes | Directed by Pascal Chaumeil
Alex Lippi makes his living by breaking up relationships. He's hired by family members and friends of women stuck in dead-end relationships with losers, bums and boring men. Alex has a rule though - he won't get involved if the woman is genuinely happy. And he never gets involved with the women he's busy sweeping off their feet, he makes them believe he's the one not able to cope with a relationship. He runs his business with his sister Melanie (a master of disguise) and her husband Marc (an electronics wiz).
Alex has a problem though – he owes money to a local heavy and he decides to take a job from a wealthy Parisian businessman who wants to stop the wedding of his beautiful daughter Juliette to British entreprenuer Jonathan. So off trot Alex and co to Monaco where they have a week to stop the wedding. To make sure he's able to keep tabs on his prey 24-hours-a-day Alex poses as a bodyguard hired by her father to look after Juliette, books into the hotel room next door and fits hers out with CCTV cameras.
And so follows a screwball comedy which is going to run the way you expect it to, but has a lot of great twists and turns along the way (and features a fantastic homage to an iconic 1980s movie). I admit I'd never seen Duris on film before and I was completely swept up by his gallic charm which seems to ooze from every pore. Paradis is also excellent as the free-spirited Juliette and both are supported admirably by an excellent cast (although Lincoln doesn't really have that much to do). The photoghraphy is beautiful, I don't think I've ever seen Monte Carlo look so good on film.
Heartbreaker's already been picked up for an English remake by Universal and Working Title and I do wonder if it will lose some of its charm once Hollywood gets its hands on it. Go and see this one, I promise you will leave the cinema with a big dumb smile on your face.
EXTRAS ★★★½ Outtakes, deleted scenes, a Making Of featurette, the theatrical trailer, Romain Duris: An Ace featurette, Glamour Always featurette, They Will Stop at Nothing featurette, Dancing Kings featurette, Romain Duris interview, Vanessa Paradis interview.