Russian Dolls (2005)

Wonderful character development!

Very well executed

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Spoilers everywhere, of course: Good parts: Humor was good, for.. the most of it, especially in the beginning. "Cute" french silly humor. This was given mostly by supporting characters, such as Isabelle and minor characters such as the boring neighbor, the tree-cutter.. so on. That said, it's an interesting mix of locations and characters, the weird things happening around Xavi usually make you get up and see what's going on. The soap opera he's working on, for example.But that's about all I can remember for the good bits. First of all, I can't deal with Xavier. He interprets everything that is given to him on the most basic perspective, but grinds on with shallow life philosophy as if his life is the most fascinating thing on earth. And mind you, when he talks about his life, he talks about the girls he accidentally had sex with.What's fascinating is how he is presented as the most uninteresting guy alive, he does absolutely nothing to deserve any kind of respect/interest/love from anyone (oh wait, he did take care of the kid. once) but everyone just seems to either hate him or love him. So that's one of my main criticisms: what could've been a movie about growing up and so on, it's a movie about sex and "relationships". I use the brackets as, unfortunately, this idea of relationships is based on having sex being the same as a relationship, the difference between love and sex is, well, the time that it took to have sex in the first place it seems. William and Natacha fall in love madly because they looked at each other, even though they couldn't speak the same language. Every girl falls in love with Xavi, when all he does is walk around, mumbling his nonsense. Then suddenly he only loves Wendy, while both of them just go around having sex or desiring others, and that turns out to be more serious and important. Because of this transition, we have the most ironic part of the movie, as Wendy and Xavi are writing the script for a clichéd soap opera and trying to survive with their integrity even as they create the most basic, Christmas-styled happy endings... and THEN, Wendy (not Xavi cause he's the cliché of the guy unable to say anything good which makes him adorable) starts this long monologue on how Xavi is the perfect guy for her because she appreciates her imperfections as much as his good bits. I really wondered by then if the subtle mockery in the rest of the movie of this kind of situations was intended..So to summarize the main plot: Xavi is a mess because he doesn't know who he loves as he just f'cks and walks. He spends time with Wendy, gets to love her. He gets jealous of her f'cking around with others, she admits she's also madly in love. He keeps f'cking around, so she admits that's not healthy for herself but their love is the real thing. Final scene she forgives him and he has a go at monogamy.So, if you don't like this Xavi character, you will have some trouble appreciating the movie, as it is 90% about him. Even the humor which I referred to as a good thing in the beginning, is good when others do it, when Xavi is the source of it.. it just seems forced. Very personally, I really couldn't deal with him playing the flute anymore when he BSing someone else.On a very personal note, I suffer with this movie as I am part of the generation that during and after university, feels that Europe is somewhat of a playground: we travel, we have different international friends, we know all the different cultural stereotypes and so on. I felt pained already with L'Auberge Espagnole, so I don't even know why I gave this movie a chance, but here it is. This is where I really have to say this is the European Hollywood at work: take an interesting subject, squash the soul out of it and present only the simple popcorn bits. We have the funny English accents, we have one or two stereotypes per nationality (ooh wait, where were the blatant stereotypes for the french?) and *bam!*, you have an international experience. What about LEARNING from different cultures instead of just making fun of them? What about growing up with friends a plane away? What about dealing with getting back to your old life and realizing how everything seems boring and held back in time? Rant finished.Final comment on internationalization: for some reason in this movie, if someone else doesn't speak your language, the characters don't dumb it down or use sign language, no, they speak as fast as they were doing before and use simpler words, maybe. Natacha wants the lights to be on, so she says "Sun" in Russian while opening up her arms and it suddenly dawns on William "You want the lights on?" to a happy answer of "Da, Da!". Seriously?To wrap-up, if you're looking for good European love and growth cinema, don't come here. I like the Before Sunrise/Sunset duo for example. Or "He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not"... or "lovers of the arctic circle" or "the science of sleep" (IMDB doesn't allow me to write the original names, ha!) For funny international stereotype bashing.. eh. I think even EuroTrip is better.

This french film is a sequel of L'Auberge Espagnol, a good film about a bunch of European students sharing a small apartment in Barcelona. There were some problems with that movie, though, that appear upfront in the sequel. Namely, this purports to be a celebration of a new, united Europe, but instead, it celebrates an isolated class, terribly content with itself. It is indeed very strange that in a film about Europe's youth, no third world immigrants appear, none of the characters seems to be unemployed or having employment problems. They seem too content seeing themselves as the people that will rule Europe tomorrow, and if that is true, you must start feeling sorry for that continent, since these people are smug, self-involved, and care very little about the misfortunes of others.

We enjoyed this film and are planning on going back again. It was a good film about modern romance. It has a lot of depth. The story was good, and the editing was great, some visual treats.The story covers a lot of ground but is very well paced,typified by the train going back and forth between London and Paris. Xavier, like many of the characters is experiencing love on many levels, not understanding everything that he is going through, and who hasn't experienced that! Sometimes we search for love, sometimes, like for William and Natacha you just know right away.There were many great visual moments, but certainly there was one of the best "hand holding" scene's in a movie. The scene of Xavier and Wendy working in the library together was a wonderful visual ballet between two people working together. There were a lot of those moments in this film, that make us want to go back and see it again.Even though the film is s sequel it stands very well on it's own.We enjoyed, we hope you do too.

Has anyone noticed, the goof in the scene where Isabelle takes Xavier to the lesbian party, it is when they are sniffing coke, or right afterwards, when Isabelle sits on the couch, that exact shot is done twice within a span of 30 seconds. She sits down on the couch, says a one liner with champagne in hand, and then the same take is repeated, I believe this is a goof, or was this done deliberately? Secondly, the goof where Xavier is walking behind the model down the Russian street in slow motion, you can see the lighting is darker on the street then when you see Xavier walking on the same street, either thats a goof or its done deliberately to show that the sun always shines for her, and not for Xavier. Does anyone know?