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EVERYTHING IS COMING up roses for Angelique (Audrey Tautou), a young painter blessed with brains, beauty, and genuine talent. Better yet, she's fallen head over heels in love with a handsome doctor (Samuel Le Bihan) – sure, he's married, but he says he's leaving his wife soon, and theirs is a passion that goes beyond social stigma. But there are some obstacles that stand in true romance's path that need to be dealt with, and Angelique is not the kind of woman who gives up her man without a fight. Several "tragic accidents" later, the film rewinds itself to ground zero, allowing a more objective view of our young couple's "romance." To say any more would kill the thrill of writer-director Laetitia Colombani's twisty little strychnine valentine, although most alert viewers will undoubtedly pick up that something smells foul long before the puzzle pieces start dropping into place. Colombani's brisk pacing and ability to conceal the metaphorical maggots in the bonbon keep things moving for a while, though the narrative's reliance on a horror female archetype and gimmicky charm wears out before the coda has played its final hand. Even if the movie's core of creepiness can largely be chocked up to clever casting, it's still one hell of a coup: the perverse pleasure one gets watching our lil' Gallic sweetheart Amélie slowly sour behind that sunbeam smile turns one actress's baggage into spun gold. As much a fuck you to that movie's iconography as it is a genre mindfuck, He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not even credits an Améliean random act of kindness as the flapping butterfly behind the tsunami; forget Montmartre and welcome to amour fou country, where Cupid's arrows are kept extrasharp. (David Fear)