How Much Do You Love Me? (2005)

One of my all time favorites.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The movie was good and The story was a good one. I voted 7 out of 10. I especially liked the scenes acted like a musical and playing opera in the back. Some parts of the film were surrealistic or i felted so. Men in the film wanted to have sex with Monica Belluci and to touch her. Although they could not manage to have or to touch her the scenes were like they did it. It was not boring and i had fun till the end of the film. Nevertheless, if Monica Belluci did not play in the movie then i would not watch this film. So, the 5 or 6 points of my 7 are for Monica Belluci and the remaining 1 or 2 points are for the film itself. After watching this movie, i felt an increasing interest in Monica Belluci. Because She is really a beautiful woman like every man's dream. i will try to watch other films like "Melina" and "Irreversible".

Calling this a movie would be exaggerate because almost all the story happens in a flat. Yes, it is the trademark of French movies and that's why in my opinion, the movies are rather dull. It's close of stage performance without the live add-on.Nevertheless, the cast are pretty excellent to support a very ironic, coarse script. For one time, Monica Belluci has a lot of lines to say and it's always a pleasure to hear her accent. Above all, I think that the more she speaks, the more she can prove her actress talent instead of relying to much on her sex-appeal.If Blier is talented enough to tell a story, I regret that he lacks some better inspiration. Watching the DVD bonus, you understand him better because he delivers good speech about film-making while cooking. I really got the feeling that he is a apt pupil but a bit lazy.And again a french DVD without the subtitles! Thanks for the deaf audience, really!

In Paris, after winning the lottery, the clerk François (Bernard Campan) goes to a bar in Pigalle and offers one hundred thousand Euros per month to the prostitute Daniela (Monica Bellucci) to live with him until the end of his money. François is a lonely man, with heart problems and Daniela stays with him for eight days. Then, she decides to come back to her man, the mobster Charly (Gérard Depardieu), but she misses François and returns to his place. But once a whore, always a whore.The promising "Combien Tu m'Aimes?" is a great deception: having Monica Bellucci, Gérard Depardieu and Bernard Campan in the cast, and directed by Bertrand Blier, this "dramatic romantic comedy" has a weird development and a confused and disappointing open conclusion. I honestly did not understand the last quarter of this movie, which is simply awful. The screenplay wastes a good and original idea, and the character of Gérard Depardieu is absolutely dull and ridiculous. The beauty of Monica Bellucci, even with forty-one years, is the best this mislead movie can offer. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "Por Amor ou Por Dinheiro?" ("For Love or For Money?")

As his earlier film "Merci la vie", "combien tu m'aimes" is Blier's homage to almost unknown Alain Robbe-Grillet films, auteur of the Nouveau Cinema, movies that try to invent a new language or new styles to show stories in cinema. So in this movie actors are shown as actors, they're really acting and don't try to seem natural. In fact they're real accessories to serve the director. He ask them to do whatever he wants and big stars even like Depardieu listen to his orders because he knows that he's a good director that knows what he wants and that he's in control of the movie. But I have to tell that it is a really sexist movie, some women shouldn't watch it because they would be offended. The word "whore" comme at least every minute, and Bellucci is shown as a female object. Sure the movie say that women can manipulate and control men, but at the end of the movie we see that men have the last word. There is some hilarious scenes like the one in the corridor with the neighbor and Bellucci arguing about how women should have an orgasm, and some jouissive scenes for their daring, but there are also some scenes I didn't like because they were maybe 'too much' and useless. Still it's a really enjoyable film to see.