I Love You, I Love You Not (1996)

User Rating:

5.4/10   

Director:

Billy Hopkins

Writer:

Wendy Kesselman (play)

Release Date:

31 October 1997 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

Prep school student Daisy and her European-born grandmother Nana share the sad stories of their lives:...

Plot Keywords:

Grandmother | Anti Semitism | Teenage Girl | Barefoot | High School

Cast

Jeanne Moreau	...	Nana
Claire Danes	...	Daisy / Young Nana
Jude Law	...	Ethan
James Van Der Beek	...	Tony
Kris Park	...	Seth
Lauren Fox	...	Alison
Emily Burkes-Nossiter	...	Jessica
Carrie Szlasa	...	Jane (as Carrie Slaza)
Natasha Wolff	...	Hope
Josiah A. Mayo	...	Chris
Brandon Danziger	...	Josh
Alex Ballar	...	Alex
Elzbieta Czyzewska	...	Dora
Frederick Neumann	...	School Principal
Peter F. Hopkins	...	Mr. Douglas

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for brief strong language and teen drinking.

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

France | Germany | UK | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Iceland:L | Finland:S | South Korea:15 | Norway:15 | Portugal:M/12 (video premiere) | Spain:7 | UK:15 | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

New York, USA

Company:

Canal+

Trivia:

Julia Stiles' movie debut.

Soundtrack:

Drove All Night

Mixed themes yield a disappointment

For me this film is unsuccessful in intermingling the issue of antisemitism with the coming of age of a relatively studious young woman. On one level the Jude Law character might be only marginally deeper than his disgustingly callow friends. He is attracted by the young woman's seriousness and relatively shy affection for him but this attraction is offset by her social conservatism. The depth of any antisemitism in him or amongst his silly friends is never explored. In the end the motivation of his character, and the point of the film, elude me. An interpretation that springs to mind is that gentiles do not feel the significance of the holocaust, that they trivialise it. Part of coming of age for jewish girls is therefore that they should (or simply do) experience failed love affairs with gentiles. The fact that these affairs fail for these reasons is somehow constructively educational for the girls. I truly hope this is not intended to be the message.