FILM OF THE WEEK: Just Another Love Story

There he lies, schlubby Danish everyman Jonas (Anders W. Berthelsen), dying in the rain and lamenting in voiceover. Writer-director Ole Bornedal (Nightwatch, and its U.S. remake) didn't need such a blatantly self-mocking title to spell out that his downbeat romantic thriller is obviously not just that, nor did he need a character to underline the irony: "Beautiful women and a mystery. Isn't that how any film noir starts?" Yes, it does, and that's how -- in a convoluted but coolly unfurled series of machinations -- our self-consciously unremarkable hero wound up a chalk outline in the opening shot.

Jonas embodies the restlessness of the middle-aged status quo: a father of two, with a long-suffering wife who nags about the broken things they need to upgrade, and a job as a crime photographer that would seem more fascinating if he didn't secretly want to shoot landscapes instead of bloody victims. The shake-up comes when his rattletrap of a car breaks down (listen to your wife, buddy!) and indirectly causes frazzled driver Julia (Rebecka Hemse) to crash, leaving her in a coma. Compelled to visit the hospitalized beauty, Jonas inadvertently meets Julia's wealthy family and somehow winds up in a lie about being her new boyfriend Sebastian, whom nobody has met. By the time he strikes up the courage to admit he's an imposter, the fam refuses to believe, writes him a blank check, and convinces him that only his love and support can save Julia. Lo and behold, it does, and with Julia's conveniently blind, amnesiac rise out of bed comes Jonas' own awakening: an appetite for romance and adventurous whims, and a reckless dual life of adultery with this gorgeous heiress, a bona fide femme fatale. Why was she in Hanoi? What's in that suitcase of hers? Who was she running from? (Somewhere in the distance, a Bernard Herrmann score cues up.)

But the most pressing question remains: what happened to the real Sebastian (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), a sleazy brute who is thought to have been murdered (as Jonas' work buddy investigates via police channels)? Bornedal plays out the tropes with sporadic but bombastic classical-music flourishes and in elaborately lurid camera angles, entertainingly structured with flashbacks, flash-forwards, and flashes of memory (digital superimpositions behind characters' heads to illustrate their thoughts). There will be those who believe the film is "just another" revisionist exercise in genre style over dramatic substance, but considered as a cautionary tale of over-the-hill despair and the extreme consequences of not being able to stop oneself from engaging in impulsive, irresponsible affairs, it's a richer success. Jonas wouldn't have wound up in that rainy predicament if he had simply invested in a new bomber jacket, or maybe a penis-extending sports car -- which would've at least made his wife happy.

Just Another Love Story opens today at NYC's Cinema Village. For showtimes and more info, click here.

Posted by ahillis at January 9, 2009 10:54 AM