Just Another Love Story

[Ms Thrifty]

Phunkygal has just posted a comp for this and it gets good reviews on IMDB, but it's from 2007, so why has it taken so long to get a UK release? It's hardly as if European films in general, and Danish films in particular, don't now have a good track record.

[Beate]

I phoned the Odeon Covent Garden and they said they should have the tickets in by the time they open at 1.30pm.

[Beate]

One pair of tickets obtained, and one pair for phunkygal.

[priamia]

I got a pair too!! Yippee!!

[tufty]

One pair of tickets obtained, and one pair for phunkygal.

How did you manage that Beate? Well done though!

I managed to get only one pair, was told at the box office that it was a maximum of one pair of tickets per customer.

[Beate]

The OH had no trouble getting two pairs! He had two vouchers of course. I did think he might get problems but told him in that case to walk out and walk straight back in again with the second voucher, LOL.

[Beate]

http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/films/just- ... ewsletters

The ViewLondon Review

Review by Matthew Turner
22/07/2009
Opens Friday 24 July 2009

Three out of Five stars
Running time: 104 mins

Enjoyable, impressively edited Danish noir thriller with an intriguingly twist-laden script and superb performances from Anders W Berthelsen and Nikolaj Lie Kaas.

What's it all about?
Directed by Ole Bornedal, Just Another Love Story stars Anders W Berthelsen as married photographer Jonas, who witnesses a car accident and becomes obsessed with the victim, Julia (Rebecka Hemse), who ends up in a coma. Visiting her in hospital, he allows her concerned family to believe that he's her boyfriend Sebastien, a deception he continues even after she wakes up (with apparent - and convenient - memory loss).

Meanwhile, Jonas's wife, Mette (Charlotte Fich) is becoming increasingly suspicious of her husband's behaviour. And when the real Sebastien (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) turns up, things take a nasty turn.

The Good
Just Another Love Story plays very much like a Danish film noir version of While You Were Sleeping, with hints of psychological horror and bits of Vertigo thrown in for good measure. To that effect, it's brilliantly edited, particularly during the scenes where Jonas is starting to lose it and mixing up his two relationships in his head.

Berthelsen and Kaas (who, between them, are in just about every Danish movie you've ever seen) are both excellent and there's strong support from Dejan Cukic as Jonas's weird best friend Frank, who gives really bad relationship advice.

The Bad
The main problem is that the Sunset Boulevard-style lying-bleeding-in-the-rain framing scenes are too much of a cliche to work properly here, particularly as they remove any suspense as to where the story is heading. Similarly, though the plot is intriguing and the script is generally good, Jonas's sudden obsession with Julia is never convincingly explained, particularly as his home life is so apparently happy.

Worth seeing?
Though not quite as good as it could have been, Just Another Love Story is still an enjoyable slice of Danish noir, thanks to a smartly written script and strong performances from Berthelsen and Kaas.

[Beate]

Has anyone noticed that screenings with Guardian vouchers always attract an older crowd? Not much phone fiddling then, but there was one guy who sneezed 4 times really loudly and I thought "keep your swine flu to yourself!" Screen 3, in which I had never been before, filled up considerably though it wasn't 100 % full.

I was only told that the film was subtitled a few minutes before and the first few minutes left me in serious doubt as to the merit of the film. You get three scenes, helpfully titled "Love scene 1, 2 and 3", the first showing a married couple in bed, the second a couple saying I love You to each other before he shoots himself, and the third a man lying dead in the street, with a woman screaming over him. I discovered halfway through that the third scene gave the ending away which mightily pissed me off. So I sat there and thought Oh God, a Danish arthouse film, what have I done to deserve this after the day I had?

Thankfully, apart from that (and some horrible killing scene), the film was actually rather good and held my attention to the end. Jonas getting more and more embroiled in Julia's life, pretending to be Sebastian (with all the consequences it ultimately held), was gripping stuff as there were dark secrets lurking behind her amnesia'd past. The OH enjoyed the film too.

7/10

[Beate]

Does no one else have an opinion on the film? I remember that a lot of people broke into somewhat uneasy laugther at the end, clearly not sure what to make of the end. And the title is very deceptive. There was a great line about it in one of the free London papers, regretfully I have not got it on me. Phunkygal's OH sat down and said to me "It's a rom-com I guess?" and was chuffed when I told him it was not, LOL.

[Beate]

Found it: From Thursday's London Lite:
"This is one misleadingly titled film. It's as if The Texas Chainsaw Massacre had been released under the name Fluffy Bunnies' DIY Misadventures".

Did anyone else think that it was incredibly stupid of Jonas to leave Julia and Sebastian alone together in the cottage in the woods? Why on earth would you do that?