Making a film that truly depicts sentimental sexuality is something writer-director Gaspar Noé has wanted to express in a film for a long time now. He’s not only mentioned this in interviews leading up to Love’s release, but he also has the filmmaker main character flat-out say this in the film. He feels that there have never been any films that have looked at sex and love in this way, and because of this we now have Love, a 3D exercise that thinks it’s making some grandiose comments on modern day love, though really is just showing an awfully sloppy and flaccid depiction.
Murphy (Karl Glusman) and Electra (Aomi Muyock) are in a very close and highly sexual relationship, and they open themselves up to a third member, their neighbour Omi (Klara Kristin). Things go pear-shaped when Murphy accidentally gets Omi pregnant and must now become part of a family (reluctantly). This occurs in the first half hour, with most of the film in flash-back mode as Murphy reminisces on better times with Electra. We mostly get a monotonous mix of the couple hanging out, taking drugs, making love, arguing, making up, making out, more hanging out, more making love, etc, etc, et al.
The first recognisable problem with Love is the acting and dialogue. Apart from the impassioned and very authentic sex scenes, the acting is real lousy and sloppy. This thoroughly underwhelming acting combined with the atrocious dialogue sometimes makes this film wildly funny in the worst kind of unintentional way, as such terrible lines delivered in such awful ways can be bluntly hilarious.
This relationship is tough to watch because, although Electra is just simply irritating, Murphy is the most irresponsible and hateable character to be seen in a film for a long time. Despite being a full-grown adult, he is oblivious to the life-changing repercussions of his actions, and when they come to fruition, all he does is complain, moan, and cry about them (which is all he does throughout a good portion of the film). It’s hard to connect or engage with a “protagonist” like Murphy when we don’t get a well-rounded character – all we see of him are the good and easy parts of his life; he is partying, having sex, taking drugs, not doing uni work, cheating on his girlfriend, getting into fights, and yet he still has the audacity to complain about the “horrendous” family lifestyle he’s now involved in. Poor Murphy!
Surprisingly from Noé, who has astonished us before with his incredible manner of uniquely telling a story or divulging an experience, his direction here is lazy as hell, using a lot of master shots (especially for the sex scenes) and there’s also plenty of cutting to black, which seems to both mask two identical shots to be edited together, and to keep making it appear the film is coming to a finish – so cheeky. There’s also all sorts of gimmicks for the 3D (you can only guess what’s going to come flying at you) though these shots are gratuitous and serve nothing in the film other than some stupid 3D moment, which is going to look extra silly if you see this in 2D.
Gaspar Noé is one of my favourite film directors ever, someone who has a clear and often dangerous vision of what he wants his films to be like, and each of his previous three films have been unique, yet each daringly bold as the last. He, perhaps more than any other filmmaker today, is pushing the boundaries of experimental narrative filmmaking into exciting new territories. Yet with his new film Love he has made one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. Dull, aggravating, enormously self-indulgent and self-congratulatory, overlong, unexciting, lazy, and totally unsexy, I hate Love.