The Man Who Loved Women Movie Review

Love can be both sweet and fatal, the late François Truffaut (1932–84) says in his 1977 film, The Man Who Loved Women. Charles Denner plays a man who sneers at Don Juans, but behaves just like them. He's so obsessed with romance that he gets hit by a car and falls out of a hospital bed just because he wants to get a better look at all the pretty girls there are in the world. Chasing women delights him and dooms him, and he has his choice of the prettiest woman in France, including Brigitte Fossey and Leslie Caron. At one point, Truffaut starts to say, yes, lasting love IS important, repetitive trysts ARE meaningless, but he drops these ideas very quickly by cutting to yet another brief affair lovingly photographed by Nestor Almendros. Whatever Truffaut wants to say about love here, he has said it better many times before. Despite its provocative subject matter and Truffaut's expert handling of same, The Man Who Loved Women remains essentially a fluff piece. AKA: L'Homme Qui Aimait les Femmes.

1977 119m/C FR Charles Denner, Brigitte Fossey, Leslie Caron, Nelly Borgeaud, Genevieve Fontanel, Nathalie Baye, Sabine Glaser; D: Francois Truffaut; W: Francois Truffaut, Suzanne Schiffman, Michel Fermaud; C: Nestor Almendros; M: Maurice Jaubert. VHS, LV, Closed Caption