Reviews

Review: Shall We Kiss?

Is a kiss ever without consequence?

By ALICIA POTTER | April 15, 2009

2.0 Stars

VIDEO: The trailer for Shall We Kiss?

Writer/director Emmanuel Mouret fancies himself Éric Rohmer, Woody Allen, or maybe both in this talky romantic trifle. Mouret stars as a puppy-faced math teacher who confides to his married best friend (Virginie Ledoyen, prim in pearls) that he's unable to express physical affection. Can she help?

After some sexy tentative caresses, the pair ditch their neutral-hued clothes, and ridiculous, predictable (except to them) complications unfold. Which they discuss. And discuss. Not that they're the only ones overanalyzing: their carnal conundrum forms the centerpiece of a tedious story-within-a-story framing device.

The film opens with a mutual chum in a golden Deneuvean updo (Julie Gayet) relaying their affair-as-morality-tale to an attractive stranger. Is a kiss ever without consequence, she wonders? Perhaps not, though Mouret's fleetingly amusing and occasionally saucy rumination on the covert kind doesn't add up to much.

Related: Review: (Untitled), Review: Last Night, Review: Love Crime, More

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