Love (2015)

Noé delivers a courageously personal, semi-autobiographical account of an aspiring filmmaker torn between two women that explores the emotional foundation of sex more honestly than most films. The explicit 3-D result proves surprisingly tame and soft-core for the director, fulfilling the lead character’s ambition of depicting sentimental sexuality.

Praises how the film makes sex look awesome and sad in all the right ways, calling the entrapment vivid and poignant despite its solipsistic world.

The film unsentimentally depicts a past sexual relationship through fragmented flashbacks from the perspective of an unlikeable protagonist trapped in an unsatisfying present. It succeeds as a mannered, mournful exploration of sensuality and memory when viewed as an over-determined work about characters seeking escape in the past.

The critic describes the film as sad and smudgy, praising Noé’s conjuring of drug-induced memories of a former relationship through its explicit scenes and visual style. He notes the potent 3D effects amid the story of a ruinous relationship.

After a slow start, Noé’s self-referential soap proves more-ish. It highlights Electra as a convincingly vulnerable aspiring artist and lover-of-threesomes, and praises the novelty of allowing a heroine to have rotten-looking teeth.

It's woodenly earnest with on-the-nose dialogue and amateur actors, but fitfully compelling as an exercise in limited style and psychological interiority.

Noé returns with his most controversial and compassionate movie yet, surprisingly tender and tasteful. The film finds the director having a little fun at his own expense while indulging expected delights with newfound humour and humanity.

More silly than sordid and even a little soppy in its late love-filled moments; many teens will love it while most adults will roll their eyes. The film creates a base nocturnal atmosphere effectively and has some strong non-sex moments, but is undermined by self-regarding elements.

The critic finds the emotional story shallow and ineffective due to an unlikeable protagonist, but praises the technical panache and beautiful sex scenes.

The critic finds Noé’s 3D sex drama a doomy, porny melodrama of erotic despair that is more to be laughed or groaned with than at, despite over-the-top acting. He singles out the director’s signature visual techniques and the effective dreamlike editing for praise.

Noé aims to tell a romance entirely through unsimulated sex, achieving a dreamy eroticism and touching innocence that strips the material of salaciousness. The result is ultimately exasperatingly one-dimensional, with nothing left to build characters or plot beyond the fornication.

The raw tale of lost passion is a noble misfire whose explicit 3-D sex scenes become tedious voyeurism because the characters remain thinly conceived flesh avatars. When it works, it achieves a lulling, melancholic frenzy about sex and memory, but the foundation is too weak to sustain the length.

The critic finds the film invents a new, singularly unsatisfying genre of 'chill-out porn'. It is more claustrophobic than enlightening or arousing, tame compared to Nymphomaniac but lacking its ambition and wit.

Too long at 135 minutes with a fractured time scheme that is a hard-to-follow mess, further hampered by English-language performances that feel hollow. It has some indelible sequences but overall feels rather limp compared to Noé’s earlier work.

Calls the film the cine-equivalent of clickbait and criticizes its one-note antagonistic style and narcissistic self-absorption.

The critic calls the film too long and self-indulgent but transporting and fun if one accepts its wavelength, praising its rare focus on how a couple's sexual life reflects their relationship dynamics.

The critic finds the film intriguing as a middle ground between art and smut despite its length and 3D gimmicks, praising its surprisingly realistic and tender depiction of a messy adult relationship.

The overlong, self-indulgent film has many flaws including weak acting, risible dialogue, and problematic politics around gender and sexuality, yet it features beautifully lit and choreographed sex scenes with lyrical visuals enhanced by 3D. It represents a softer, more sentimental side of Noé focused on 'sentimental sexuality' rather than pure transgression, leaving some fans potentially underwhelmed but still diverting and occasionally dazzling.

The film is not as shocking as its marketing suggested and falls short of being Noé's best or most transgressive work, with some characters lacking realistic grounding and the runtime feeling long. It earns praise for eye-popping 3D effects, tender intimate moments between leads, and successfully integrating explicit sex into a mainstream context.

The critic finds the film gorgeously shot and conceived but repetitive and exhausting over its long runtime. They single out the explicit sex scenes for understanding want and need while noting a lack of emotional complexity or investment in the characters.

Stripped of its extensive sex scenes the film reduces to a stilted, unrealistic love story with trite dialogue and unmotivated characters that lacks the emotional power of Noé's earlier work like Irreversible. The graphic but mostly tasteful sex is well-shot and central, making it a joyous celebration of sexuality in a melodrama format.

The critic praises the intimate, frank, and skillfully shot sex scenes as a highlight worth celebrating. Everything else falls short due to blank characters, platitudinous dialogue, interminable fights, and a script that fails to deliver emotional or intellectual depth.