58
While the controlling deities might have found some amusement in this narrative, in Jacquot’s hands the tale is more bland than tragic.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
The Hollywood Reporter by Boyd van Hoeij
It helps immeasurably that Gainsbourg, as an actress, is as intense as her presence feels evanescent, always seemingly onto the next moment already, leaving everyone in her wake.
75
Throughout, Benoît Jacquot never loses sight of the primordial compulsions that drive feelings and expressions of great love and beauty.
40
That the drama should hinge on a series of bizarre novelistic coincidences and the irrational dopiness of the characters with whom we're supposed to empathise drains the film of realism and sends us into Mills & Boon territory.
75
The Playlist by Kevin Jagernauth
For those willing to invest in the lives of these characters, even if the framework around them directly and without apology guides them toward inevitable tragedy, they will experience a drama of deep, genuine feeling.
70
Village Voice by Marsha McCreadie
The film is so unabashed in showing the place of passion in a bourgeois world, how a missed connection can screw up a life forever, that plot implausibilities are forgiven.
40
Suspense can be riveting, but 3 Hearts really needed to deploy its bomb much earlier. When it does goes off, it’s a dud.
60
The entire scenario, contrived to within an inch of its life, takes Poelvoorde’s appeal for granted. Marc’s anxiety becomes our own once he realizes what he’s done, though Jacquot makes it much more compelling to watch his characters fall in love than it is to see them writhe and twist amid its complications.
40
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
The screenplay relies on so many mechanical contrivances to make the story gripping that you can hear the rusty machinery clanking.