Down by Love (2016)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Fresh and Exciting

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

except the fact that some scenes looked fake and so cliché,.. i would say the performance is rather satisfying,i was touched,it really grabbed my attention and got me emotional,and i think it's mainly due to the chemistry between the main characters that served very well the story. Guillaume and Adele 's passionate performances,managed somehow to bring believable romance onto screen without doing too much.. it was heartwarming!i liked it!

This movie really is just a bad clichée. Mid aged prison warden (Guillaume Gallienne aged 44) falls for his much younger and very beautiful new female prisoner (Adèle Exarchopoulos aged 23).The story line is all about his attraction for her. And it's extremely flat and boring. We don't know her objectives. Which could be made in an interesting manner, except it's not. And there is nothing extraordinarily interesting about this story, except that it is set in a prison.The film is basically a creepy old man lusting after a beautiful young girl. Not exactly new story... There is no depht to it either, it really is as shallow as it sounds.

The three central performances keep you watching right up to the Fade Out but against this the director doesn't seem to know what genre he is working in so it holds the interest in spite of inept direction. On paper it's a simple premise: The warden of a women's prison becomes sexually involved with one of the prisoners. The warden is portrayed initially as being happily married with a young daughter and a healthy sexual relationship with his wife, who also works in the Prison Service. As warden he could, presumably, sleep with any and every one of the prisoners but has clearly not been tempted until a new girl arrives. The prisoner instigates the affair and soon the warden is taking enormous risks that put his job at stake and costs him his marriage but what is never made clear is whether or not the girl is manipulating him. These are minor beefs in a movie where the acting is everything.

I gave seven for the absolutely mesmerizing cast. This couple formed by Guillaume Gallienne (Les garçons et Guillaume à table, Yves Saint Laurent), one of the most versatile and surprising French actors (he's also part of la Comedy Francaise theater company), always powerful in his creativity, and a very talented young actress,like Adele Exarchopoulos (La vie d'Adele) who can explode with emotions, seemed odd on paper but it works, like all the other actors (notable mention to the wonderful Stephanie Cleau). Fortunately, I must say, because the director Pierre Godeau, doesn't seem able to cope properly with the sensitive matter in the plot. A love story in prison between the jail director and a prisoner, inspired to a real fact that happened to "Emma" , a young woman involved in France, in the vicious kidnapping and homicide of a young Jewish man by a street gang. None of the criminal case is present in the movie. Godeau sublimates the characters in the world apart of the prison, which can be cool, but he hasn't a real direction. Here everything is left in mid-air, or reduced to simplistic answers. The actors nonetheless make the movie compelling.