French actor Romain Duris has never quite achieved the heartthrob status of fellow countryman Louis Garrel in the U.S. Garrel made an erotic splash in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers, and swiftly followed it up with roles that were both outré (Christophe Honoré's unfortunate La Mere) and heartbreaking (Honoré's rebound, Love Songs). And though Duris co-starred with Garrel in Honoré's Dans Paris, he has never been on the same level with Garrel's smoldering sexiness. That's all going to change now that Pascal Chaumeil's Heartbreaker is being released stateside.
As Alex Lippi, a professional at breaking up bad relationships, Duris embraces the chance to wear gorgeous suits and display an ample charm. What keeps the role (and the actor) from coming across as smug is Duris’ comfort with physical comedy. Like Cary Grant, Duris has perfected the art of sexy slapstick. So though we’re treated to him strutting through an airport dressed in carefully casual white, his thick hair windblown just so, we’re also treated to his stone-faced rehearsal of Dirty Dancing choreography with his brother-in-law and a wrestling match with a horny bridesmaid.
The story is simple: Alex goes around the world with his sister and brother-inlaw, hired by concerned friends or family to seduce unconsciously unhappy women away from their boorish boyfriends or husbands. He doesn’t sleep with them, and a prepared, teary speech makes it clear that though they deserve happiness, they will not find it with him. A hilarious montage of past successes proves that Alex is fluent as both sexy blue collar workers and Japanese-speaking chefs. No one can resist him (certainly not audiences privy to his elaborate opening ruse)—until the proverbial Big Score.
Faced with financial ruin, Alex and company are forced to accept a sketchy job offer from a suspicious father to break up the engagement of uptight Juliette (Vanessa Paradis) and her wealthy philanthropist (but English!) fiancé (Andrew Lincoln) a week before their wedding. Alex is reluctant to take the job, because there seems to be nothing wrong with the relationship, but his vast debts convince him otherwise. His concerns turn out to be well-founded, since the icy Juliette has no interest in the new “bodyguard” her father has hired—until Alex and his team stage an elaborate robbery to paint Alex as a white knight. After that, Alex and Juliette begin to engage in the usual push-pull attraction of romantic comedies.
The difference in Heartbreaker is that Duris and Paradis are both actors—not rom-com stars—bringing with them a level of emotionalism that is usually lacking in Hollywood films. Yet co-screenwriter (with Jeremy Doner and Yoann Gromb) Laurent Zeitoun clearly knows and loves the classic Hollywood screwball comedies; the film’s climax is an affectionate nod to It Happened One Night.
Paradis, with her bruised, pouty beauty, seems an unlikely choice for a frothy romantic comedy at first glance. But as Juliette slowly begins to relax, Paradis leavens her disdain with wicked little smiles, as much at herself for being caught up in a Wham! song as at Alex’s sweaty attempts at suavity. But without Duris grounding the film in an utter seriousness that allows it to soar, Heartbreaker wouldn’t work as purely as it does. A smirk would be fatal to the film and the character, but Duris remains straight-faced throughout, and all the sexier for it. Louis Garrel had better watch out—there’s a new Gallic heartthrob in town.
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Heartbreaker
Directed by Pascal Chaumeil
Runtime: 104 min.
