A French review with what looks like an exclusive clip at the end. Unfortunately, the clip looks like it is only available in France...
www.cineseries-mag.fr/teach-me-love-un-film-de-tom-vaughan-critique/Review in English - translated by Google translate (it's still hard to understand and a bit confusing, even with the translation)...
Pierce Brosnan, an actor who knows how to have fun
Pierce Brosnan is an actor who has nothing left to prove and not particularly looking to do either. Since reaching the peak of his career with his role as James Bond, we have certainly seen in The ghostwriter, but it is mainly specialized in two types of roles: the thief / secret agent, more more older (The Matador, The november man, ...) and the seductive soft heart beneath cynical paces (Mamma Mia, a matter of the heart, ...): Teach me love is clearly within the second category. At the wheel of his production company Irish Dreamtime, Pierce Brosnan funds projects that make her happy, and if the IMDB notes do not rise very high (generally below 7/10) fans have the pleasure to find new adventures .
This small introduction is to show you why the output of Teach me love the E-cinema format is far from absurd: the film is not really ambitious, but has the sole purpose to provide a friendly entertainment for a summer hot afternoon.
A romantic comedy to alert rhythm
Teach me love is a film that, perhaps for fear of missing material in his scenario offers several quite different challenges in its history.
The framework set in the first stage is: Pierce Brosnan tells his son the events that it is currently in a police station. And in fact the fate is not kind with beautiful Irish: unrepentant seducer and professor at the university, it ranks for an American who quickly filed for divorce. Thus establishes a rather uncomfortable situation: Pierce refuses to return to England, and settled in the shed of the house of his wife (a very comfortable handing, we speak of a large estate) to continue to see her son . It also agrees to teach in a public unglamorous faculty where students are more interested in their mobile phone than by Byron. Finally, his residence permit expires and his final work permit depends largely on his marriage that only exists on paper.
It will therefore be for our hero to find a better job, to prove his desire to become American, not too upset his ex-wife to agree to support him in his procedure. If we add to this the half-sister of Jessica Alba, played by Salma Hayek, writer officer who is beautiful, intelligent, but married to a writer egocentric success, and his father, played by Malcolm McDowell (we good to see a movie more worthy than many who make up its overloaded filmography) who criticized him for turning his back on his principles, we understand that the program will be loaded.
Teach me love is a romantic comedy that insists more on the side of the romantic comedy side: if the film plays on the seductive potential of its main players, he uses mainly to put them in situations more complicated, sometimes quite farcical. In this, it is never boring: there's always something new, but with negative consequences for everything is very superficial, like the acting, lively but not at all subtle, and the film is lost somewhat in subplots not so interesting, like the anti-alcohol support group which is forced to participate Pierce Brosnan.
Consistency film against real life: the question of realism
Teach me love, under its paces alert romantic comedy, superficial but friendly, poses a real question scenario: what do we expect in terms of consistency of characters?
To simplify crudely, there are between the viewer and the film a suspension of disbelief pact that says, "I am willing to accept what I see, as long as it makes sense in the mechanics of the story." We can accept dinosaurs, terminators, as long as the movie is not playing us, and follow the rules it lays down. This is why a movie like Inception spend as much time explaining his world: once in action, we understand directly what is happening, how the hero transgresses its rules and jeopardizes.
In a romantic comedy, acceptance seems easier, but is not so if we are not dealing with imaginary creatures, we require them to behave in a way that we can understand . Without falling into a scenario where everything has a reason and everything is defined as can brilliantly make the trilogy Back to the future, it is easier to get emotionally involved with a character if one understands its way function.
Teach me love is a film that does not care absolutely no such consistency. There is even something quite fun to observe how the film describes a character to make him act the exact opposite. Thus, Pierce Brosnan is a womanizer who will agree to leave everything to one of his students and transformed almost immediately into doting father. We also do not know much of why he did this, since the character of Jessica Alba is described as an American obsessed by money and which finds beauty in the tax optimization plans: what was she doing then in a course on romantic literature at Cambridge? Likewise the character of Pierce Brosnan seems to be in complete disagreement and even feel resentment towards his father while he practiced the same trade (literally Brosnan having over as McDowell to retire), taken seduction techniques and shared the same vision of the world almost all his life. Finally, it was hard to understand exactly what it would be so difficult for a former professor of Cambridge to get a green card even if he were to divorce: single men have no right to come s installing in the US?
It was soon felt that the characters are not motivated by their feelings but are puppets manipulated to allow a bounce to occur. This constant desire to contradict what was previously announced culminates in a happy ending which, if we follow the events seem logical, but is becoming progressively more strange as you think about it.
In real life, the people around us are making surprising decisions, or because we do not understand their logic, or because, in the words of two British and the mainland: "Life is made of pieces that do not join. " However, even facing a surprising choice, we try to understand why this person did this. The lightness of the characters of Teach me love, changing from one moment to the next what makes their beliefs, emotions, or their feelings for one another, makes us ask ourselves: are we -even as incoherent?
Teach me love could follow this kind of psychological realism, which means that people are still choosing the least obvious and most contrary to their interests. But it seems that this is not the first goal of the movie, which spins from one situation to another without taking the time to explain, even in its most minor aspects. So we do not say why one of the members of the group of words has a clear speech impediment: it is only by seeing the generic name Marlee Matlin you understand: this actress who won an Oscar for her role in Children of a Lesser effect is deaf and speaks with difficulty. This is certainly the price to want the twists multiply if we can see in all the characters that are a little more time spent with them have allowed us to better understand them.
Teach me romantic comedy
What remains in the end he Teach me love? If one takes the game, we appreciate his pace, the charm of Pierce Brosnan, the piquancy of Salma Hayek, and a scenario involving a disillusioned hero in the tradition of those played by Hugh Grant. If there is less customer of this type of film, we try to understand the scenario to see that nothing really makes sense, we will realize that the actors play actually quite bad, that achievement is functional and ugly moment , and the film wavers between wanting to break the codes of the romantic comedy and acts in completely, forcing a happy ending grotesque in context. This film is not a total disaster, but still represents a waste given its cast, ideal for a romantic comedy.
If Teach me love is very consistent in the offer E-cinema TF1, since this is a romantic comedy and that Salma Hayek was already showing Everly, we advise you to rent rather Adaline: more sophisticated, more tender, played better, better written and more original.