Games of Love and Chance (L'Esquive) (2005)
Average Rating: 6.8/10
Reviews Counted: 17
Fresh: 13 | Rotten: 4
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 6.8/10
Critic Reviews: 7
Fresh: 5 | Rotten: 2
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 2,409
Movie Info
A young tough develops a taste for the classics when he falls for a girl who wants to be an actor in this drama from France. Krimo (Osman Elkharraz) is a streetwise teenager who doesn't have much to say to either his mother (Meriem Serbah) or his girlfriend, Magali (Aurelie Ganito), and plays tough guy with his friends. But Krimo has a creative side he doesn't share with everyone which he inherited from his father, and one day, after Magali has given him his walking papers, Krimo sees a pretty
Aug 31, 2005 Limited
Apr 18, 2006
New Yorker Films
Cast
-
Osman Elkharraz
Krimo -
Sara Forestier
Lydia -
Sabrina Ouazani
Frida -
Nanou Benhamou
Nanou -
Aurelie Ganito
Magali -
Meriem Serbah
Krimo's Mother -
Rachid Hami
Rachid -
-
-
-
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All Critics (19) | Top Critics (9) | Fresh (13) | Rotten (4) | DVD (4)
Mostly a monotonous din of kids trashing one another.
It is a provocative and potentially rich premise, to be sure, but the execution here is somewhat lacking.
This graceful and sympathetic look at how the lives of teenagers intersect with a work of literature won several César awards in France.
Kechiche extracts breathtakingly disciplined performances from all of his first-time actors, and truly magical ones from Forestier as the prematurely full-blown diva Lydia and Sabrina Ouazani as Frida, her motor-mouthed partner in theatrical crime.
A work of drama, it's more realistic than any TV reality show.
Reading between the cuss words, the movie glimpses a sunny teen innocence just before it darkens irreversibly into adulthood.
Viewers here can't help but respond to the raw emotions and acting ability of the largely nonprofessional cast.
Abdellatif Kechiche's beautifully observed tale of high-school kids in the projects outside Paris... plays like a Cassavetes project in a fresh, young mode.
Games of Love and Chance plays like a French version of Jim McKay's Our Song. But, unlike McKay's superior American version, Kechiche is unable to transform the everyday lives of his characters into something meaningful.
the positive messages of The Game... make it worthwhile, especially for younger auds with a spirit of adventure to see something not created for the multiplex
expertly evokes these kids' world, where a cell phone is an all important possession, hip hop slang the language of the day and their couplings the main topic of conversation.
An innovative romantic coming-of-age tale set in a tough ghetto area outside Paris populated mainly by Muslim kids from North Africa.
This isn't La Haine, it's more like Raising Victor Vargas, another surprisingly positive-minded film about urban youth.
L'Esquive consistently teeters on the brink of tragedy but dares to end on a chipper note.
Has a lot of promise, but despite two raw, excellent performances L'esquive does not deliver.
Audience Reviews for Games of Love and Chance (L'Esquive)
LaCroix brilliantly contrasts the harsh argot of a present-day Parisian banlieue, with the artful, classical dialogue of Marivaux. And that scene with the police treating our beloved teens like serial killers? Those police are those same teens, only a few years older with adult responsibilities. What a revelation! Not to make too grand a generalization, but I now understand so much more about urban police than before.
Thank you to Abdellatif Kechiche and to everyone who contributed to this production. It was brilliant!
Discussion Forum
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Foreign Titles
- Nicht ja, nicht nein (DE)
- L'Esquive (FR)










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