La cerise sur le gâteau (2012) Reviews

• Perhaps For Laura Morante Fans Only

  magnoliaspringsal2013-04-05

  In the "External Reviews" section there are a couple of English-speaking film fans who got to see this movie, I am assuming, with English sub-titles. I couldn't find any. I "ripped" the Italian sub-titles from the DVD, used Google to translate them to English, cleaned them up as best I could before watching the movie. I am a Laura Morante fan since seeing "Remember Me, My Love"; actually even before that as I enjoyed "The Dancer Upstairs" without knowing who Ms. Morante was. She both stars in and directs this film, "Cherry on the Cake". Even cutting the film some slack because my sub-titles were less-than-professional, it was not a great film. Did I enjoy it? Absolutely, but on the strength of Laura Morante's talent as an actress, not because of the movie itself. The premise is that "Amanda", a woman who her best friend's husband, a psychiatrist, claims instinctively ruins her chances with any man who may be a prospective suitor, meets "Antoine" who she mistakenly assumes to be gay, therefor, not a prospect. The predictable happens from there, not all that well. If the film were on a see-saw, everyone else, plot included would be on one end. On the other end would be Laura Morante the actress, whose beauty, facial expressions and body language, tics and inflections are perfect and enough, for her fans, to balance the 'see-saw'. For those not aware of the cast and this is simply a Rom-Com with sub-titles, unfortunately, there are better offerings out there.

• Broken woman meets broken man. No hilarity ensues.

  Dargaud2013-07-08

  OK, I only give 1/10 to movies I just couldn't bear to watch till the end. This is one of them. It is a very predictable 'broken woman meets broken man and falls in love patching up both of them' kind of movie. It's okay, plenty of movies are predictable. The problem is that the actors (or rather the roles) are extremely annoying. The woman made my hair stand on ends. The man is basically as alive as a slug: all he ever does is look sad; you have no idea what he does the rest of the time because he doesn't say a word, unless you count Wookie grunts as dialog. Their friends are either obnoxious or so contrary to what a friend ought to do that I'm pretty sure I've got better enemies. No spoilers here because I stopped watching halfway through.