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 Imagine Me & You 

What grade would you give this film?
A 50%  50%  [ 2 ]
B 25%  25%  [ 1 ]
C 25%  25%  [ 1 ]
D 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
F 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Total votes : 4

 Imagine Me & You 
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College Boy Z

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Post Imagine Me & You
Imagine Me & You

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Imagine Me & You is a 2005 British-German comedy-romance film written and directed by Ol Parker. It centres on the relationship between Rachel, played by Piper Perabo and Luce, played by Lena Headey, who meet on Rachel's wedding day. The movie takes its title from a line in the song "Happy Together". Writer/director Ol Parker reveals on the DVD audio commentary that the movie was originally titled Click, after the French term for love at first sight, but conflicts with the Adam Sandler film of the same name necessitated the name change.


Wed Feb 01, 2006 9:40 pm
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Bump for Jeff.


Thu Feb 09, 2006 4:32 pm
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Seeing this on Monday...

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Sat Feb 11, 2006 12:03 am
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A surprisingly good film. Probably one of my favorite rom-coms ever, it just worked out perfectly. Was it cliched? Certainly. But somehow it managed to overcome that and be very enjoyable in the end. Piper Perabo and Matthew Goode did a fantastic job and really made their characters very believable.

The ending was the only sore spot with the film as it really left one of the subplots entirely undeveloped. However, given the rest of the film, this was excusable.

A-

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Sat Feb 11, 2006 12:22 am
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Rachel (Piper Perabo) and Heck (Matthew Goode) seem to have the perfect relationship. They are young, in love and about to get married. Nothing seems to stand in their way. But when Rachel sees the beautiful florist Luce (Lena Headey) while walking down the aisle, everything changes. The marriage goes as planned and Rachel goes on with life, but she can't stop thinking about Luce. It's an attraction that she doesn't understand, but she needs to have Luce in her life. She tries to become her confidante by setting her up with Heck's best friend Coop (Darren Boyd), but that doesn't work out when it is revealed that Luce is a lesbian. As the attraction between the two grows stronger each day, Rachel must decide whether to stay with the life she knows or embark on a whole new journey of self-discovery.

Written and directed by newcomer Ol Parker, Imagine Me & You is the latest romantic comedy to come from across the shores - using a familiar formula but adding a new twist. With the success of such films as Bridget Jones's Diary and Love Actually, it seems as if audiences have come to love and respect these works. This is yet another success from the UK and proves that when it comes to romantic comedies, their work cannot be beaten. With its sweet and funny screenplay and charming lead performances, Imagine Me & You is a refreshing take on a story we all know.

Piper Perabo has always been a star on the rise ever since her breakout performances in the fun Coyote Ugly and the fantastic Lost & Delirious. Here once again she proves herself a capable and charismatic leading lady. Her character is likable and the transition is completely believable. Lena Headey is also excellent as Luce, a woman who isn't afraid of who she is and won't deny her attraction to Rachel. She gives a sweet and slightly more subdued performance here and excels. The two have excellent chemistry which makes the relationship seem very realistic. But surprisingly the strongest performance comes from Matthew Goode as the unsuspecting husband. He is extremely likable and charming and delivers a top-notch performance. I really felt for his character and would have been just as happy if Rachel ended up with him.

The supporting performances are also solid. Anthony Head of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" fame plays Rachel's father and delivers an excellent comedic performance. He has some hilarious one-liners and his character is memorable. The same could be said for Darren Boyd as Coop. His character initially comes off as a jackass, but later proves to be a pretty nice guy. Also of note are Sue Johnston as Rachel's demanding mother and Sharon Horgan as Luce's mother.

The screenplay is what makes the film really work the best. The whole thing is predictable, but it wouldn't be a romantic comedy if it wasn't. What makes it different is the clever use of dialogue and the mixture of comedy, drama and romance. There are just as many laugh-out-loud scenes as there are dramatic ones. The characters are all well-developed and this allows you to really care about them. The one drawback is that Parker doesn't take advantage of the location he is in. London is a beautiful place and this could have been exemplified more. The city was used to perfection in Love Actually.

Imagine Me & You is a refreshing and romantic tale of true love that is filled with many memorable moments. Thanks to excellent performances from Perabo, Headey and Goode, the film is a huge success. It proves once again that England is king when it comes to the genre. With so many success stories under their belt, I can't wait to see what is coming next.

8/10 (A-)


Fri Feb 17, 2006 10:27 pm
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I saw this last Saturday night...


IMAGINE ME & YOU (2006)

Everything seems to be going great for Londoners Rachel (Piper Perabo) and Heck (Matthew Goode), a seemingly perfect couple, on their wedding day. The church is filled with their family and friends and everything appears to be going according to plan. That is until something unexpected happens while Rachel is walking down the aisle; she falls in love. Though it's not with the man she's supposed to marry, in fact, it's not with a man at all. As she makes her way up to the altar Rachel locks eyes with Luce (Lena Headey), the florist who arranged the flowers for the wedding. While they seem to share a brief but powerful moment the wedding goes on anyway. At the reception the two officially meet as Luce helps Rachel out of a jam. Shortly after the wedding takes place Rachel visits Luce's flower shop to thank her and invite her over for dinner with her and Heck. She doesn't tell her though that she plans on setting her up with Heck's player friend Coop (Darren Boyd). Rachel persuades Heck to invite Coop over, though Heck thinks the set-up is a bad idea since Coop doesn't really do relationships. Rachel explains to Heck how important it is to her that she befriend Luce by saying, "You know when you meet someone and you connect and you just know they're going to be your best friend?" Well that's how she felt when she met Luce.

At the party when Luce learns of the set-up she explains to Heck that she's a lesbian. This is completely fine with him and he lets Coop know, but doesn't mention it to Rachel until they run into Luce with another woman at the store. After they part ways, Heck, obviously wondering in his mind if the other woman is her girlfriend, tells Rachel that Luce is a lesbian. When they run into them again in another aisle Heck asks if they're an item, in which we find out they're not. Before Rachel had just assumed Luce was straight so she only planned on being good friends, but now that she learns she's not and the possibility of being more presents itself she can't help but want to be more. She doesn't want to feel this way and wishes she could go back to the way she felt before when she was in love with Heck, but love is a force of nature you have no control over and she finds it impossible to get Luce out of her head. She still loves Heck, and she should as he's a great guy, but with Luce it just feels different and she realizes she didn't feel this way about him. She doesn't know what to do, as she's no longer madly in love with the guy she married and instead yearns for another, but she can't imagine hurting him. There's even a touching scene where she's planning on just settling for Heck because she cares about him too much to hurt him and she says, "It was enough before, it will be enough again."

If you've never experienced love at first sight before you likely don't believe it exists and will have a hard time swallowing the plot of this movie, as will those who view sexuality as black and white and will find it unrealistic that the main character out of the blue falls in love with another woman. But stuff like this happens all the time and human sexuality is way too complex to be looked at in black and white. I didn't have a hard time believing the plot as I've experienced love at first sight before. And it's not just finding someone hot, since if that were the case I'd be experiencing love at first sight almost every day. Yes looks do play a factor, but love at first sight is when you sense something more right away and you instantly experience these all-powerful, all-consuming feelings for someone. Feelings that you can't get away from even if you try. Now it might turn out this person isn't the right one for you, but that's what you'll have to find out later, because at the time they are the one and you can't deny these feelings. So while some people will have a hard time buying into the plot I found it plausible.

Writer/Director Ol Parker got the idea for the film based on how him and his wife (actress Thandie Newton) fell in love at first sight. He just made it more complicated by having the main character fall in love with someone else on her wedding day, which would pretty much be the worst possible time to have it happen. His intention was to show love as the unstoppable force of nature that it is.

The cast is wonderful and work great together. I've been a fan of Piper Perabo (Lost & Delirious) since first seeing her in "Coyote Ugly." Her and Lena Headey (Gossip, The Brothers Grimm), who have starred together before in 2005's awful creature feature "The Cave," had really good chemistry here. While I must say Lena ended up being my favorite of them all, I loved Piper and Matthew Goode (Chasing Liberty, Match Point) as well. Matthew couldn't have been more charming and lovable here. His character, Heck, is irresistible and the perfect guy. He's just so nice and wonderful, not to mention really handsome. You can't help but fall for him, and even though you love Luce you feel bad for Heck. Though I wanted Rachel and Luce to be together because Rachel was in love with Luce and wouldn't be truly happy with Heck, and he deserved to have someone that would love him back as much as he loved them, and Rachel deserved to be with who she really loved. I liked how Ol Parker didn't take the easy way out and make the character of Heck a total sleaze or just someone we didn't care that much about. Instead he's immensely desirable and has lines like, "I want you to be happy, but I want to be the cause of happiness in you" that are sure to make you go "Aww." There is no doubt in my mind that people watching this movie will fall for him as he's such a catch. Also worth noting is Boo Jackson, the young actress who plays the little girl in the film, H (she was named "H" because while in labor her mother shouted "Jesus H. Christ," so that's what the "H" stands for). Her accent was a little thick at times and made it hard to understand some of the things she said, but she was a cutie and her final scene with Heck was really touching.

"Imagine Me & You" is a funny and charming crowd-pleaser sure to win over most. It has some really good music, especially "Feels Like I'm In Love" by Kelly Marie, "Suspended From Class" by Camera Obscura, and of course "Happy Together" by The Turtles. One song that wasn't in the movie but would have been so perfect for it is "She" by lesbian singer-songwriter Jen Foster. It would have fit so well and it's unfortunate it wasn't in the film. I loved the scene when Rachel and Luce went out dancing after the game. I'm a sucker for dancing scenes though, as I'm sure a lot of people are. They can be more fun to watch than actually dancing. I also liked how they didn't make the character of Luce the one eagerly pursuing Rachel because it would just be another excuse for the anti-gay people to say, "See, gay people are out to ruin straight relationships" or something like that. Like how Gene Shalit of the Today show called the character of Jack in "Brokeback Mountain" a sexual predator for pursuing Ennis, even though you know you never hear that about someone who is pursuing someone of the opposite sex in a movie, even if the other person is involved with someone. If Jack would be labeled a sexual predator then Kirsten Dunst's character in "Elizabethtown" is an even bigger one for going after Orlando Bloom's character in a borderline stalker-ish manner. So it was nice that in "Imagine Me & You" Luce was more reluctant to get involved with Rachel, even though she had feelings for her too, because she liked Heck and didn't want to be responsible for splitting up a couple.

I won't deny that the film is made better to me by being a same-sex romance, and that's because there aren't many of them being made with bigger budgets and higher production values. The ones that are released are usually low-budget, cheaply done, and from smaller studios. It's always nice to see one that's well-made. Had this been a romance between a guy and girl it wouldn't have been nearly as good because the outline for the film would be the same as other romantic comedies with nothing new being brought to the table. I'm sure I'd have liked it still, but it's doubtful I would have loved it as much.

"Imagine Me & You" puts a satisfying new twist on a familiar formula. For the most part it's a by-the-numbers romantic comedy, but it's made fresher and more enjoyable by being a same-sex romance with engaging performances, nice London scenery, and a good script. My only real complaint is the very last scene, which I found a bit silly and too self-aware, which I hate. It should have ended with the scene on the bench, which would have been perfect.

While it's definitely not as great as "Kissing Jessica Stein," another lesbian romantic comedy from Fox Searchlight, I'd still highly recommend "Imagine Me & You." One thing that makes it more accessible to a broader audience is that it doesn't make a big deal out of it being a same-sex romance. It just is, and it's not treated like it's wrong or even talked about that much, nor is it sexually graphic. It's something even your grandparents could see. So if you have no problem with the content of the film then it's sure to put a smile on your face, especially the big finale, which was really delightful.

Grade: 9/10 (A-)


Note(s):

-The film is Rated "R" for some language and sexual material, and while usually I see where the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) is coming from with their ratings for most films and will agree with them, "“Imagine Me & You" joins the small list of ones where the rating couldn't be more undeserving. There can't be more than 3 "F" words, and after the movie I couldn't even remember there being any at all. I think for a PG-13 movie the maximum amount of "F" words it can have is 3, though they have made exceptions in the past. There is also no sex or nudity in the movie. There are sexual situations and some "on top of the clothes" stuff, but nothing even remotely graphic. There was no need for this to have such a harsh rating. It should have received a PG-13 rating. The MPAA was completely unfair about this. The only reason I can think of for them giving it an "R" rating is because they were being biased due to it being a same-sex romance. But that wouldn't make sense because 2005's "Rent" received a PG-13 and had far more suggestive dialogue/lyrics and sexual situations, including same-sex ones; not to mention it featured the "F" word as well. I'¢m not saying that I think it deserved an "R" rating, because I don't, but "Imagine Me & You" receiving a harsher rating than it is unreasonable. "Rent" should have had the harsher rating.


Last edited by Magic Mike on Mon Jun 25, 2012 2:47 am, edited 2 times in total.



Thu Mar 02, 2006 3:20 pm
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The film is dead in the water on arrival. It has the same problem Tristan & Isolde did. Good performances can't save chemistry. If you do not believe for two seconds that these people are in love, the rest of the film is going to be a hard sell.

Is it likeable? Yes, up until the last 20 minutes where they throw away a character, who is "saved" by a sequence during the credits (Really, if you have to sell me on something during the credits, you've done a horrible job in wrapping up your film). Is everyone in the film likeable? Yes.

I don't blame this one the writer/director Ol Parker, but on the two lead actresses chemistry together. They seem to be more along the lines of sisters when they are together, and if you're supposed to believe they are in love, that's the exact opposite feeling you want to get out of your audiences.

C

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Thu Jul 20, 2006 1:01 am
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Post Re: Imagine Me & You
Not bad. The film has a romantic tone - well photographed & such. Actors turn in good performances, but nothing stellar. The screenplay is rather average, not lifting above cliche or convention. It won't set the world on fire, but it's a charming film that's well-made enough for anyone to bother watching. More or less an average, though well-made rom-com.

**.5/****


Wed Aug 08, 2007 1:06 pm
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Post Re: Imagine Me & You
Huh, I never posted a rating for this. It was cute, well acted and funny fluff.

8/10 (B+)

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Top 10 Films of 2016

1. La La Land
2. Other People
3. Nocturnal Animals
4. Swiss Army Man
5. Manchester by the Sea
6. The Edge of Seventeen
7. Sing Street
8. Indignation
9. The Lobster
10. Hell or High Water


Thu Aug 09, 2007 1:52 am
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