Not to give too much away, but Lila Says is the story of a relationship between a man and a girl in a Arabian community in France. She is sexually aggressive towards one man, Chimo, in her neighborhood whom she sees as a better man than the other gangsters and men who hit on her. She starts baiting him with ideas of her sexuality in graphic detail to him. In every encounter with her, though, he cannot say the words which spring to his mind since he has never felt this way about a girl like her before. He is continually harassed by his friends to partake in good times with them, but he turns them down due to the newfound spark in his soul which is Lila. When the friends get sick of his head-over-heels-in-love attitude, they start to treat her like the sexually adventurous girl which she proclaimed to be (only to Chimo) and assault her, only to reveal a truly personal secret of hers all along...
I was dumbfounded by the end at how sad I was for her when all along I thought I had her pinned as the image she portrayed. From the beginning, when she says "Do you wanna see my p*ssy?", I thought, "OK, here we go. Another Skin-o-max French film about screwing around." But the real tie between Lila and Chimo is what keeps you watching this one. You feel the love that they share on some other plane and keep wondering about her aunt and their relationship and how Chimo is going to end up.
I would recommend it to anyone who likes deep relationship stories and movies. It has a charm about it like City of God or Lost in Translation. It also delves into a culture all its own in this Arab part of France. I love the real-life struggle that the police get from the Arab man in his car, and some comment about how he didn't blow up any buildings, or something to that effect...good social commentary from the other side of the spectrum for people here in the U.S.
I gave it a 7 star rating. Definitely above average twist yet pulls back from being an epic film by simply stating things which may be true without getting too out of control with meaning or existentialism or anything else. Very good, go rent it today.
I was dumbfounded by the end at how sad I was for her when all along I thought I had her pinned as the image she portrayed. From the beginning, when she says "Do you wanna see my p*ssy?", I thought, "OK, here we go. Another Skin-o-max French film about screwing around." But the real tie between Lila and Chimo is what keeps you watching this one. You feel the love that they share on some other plane and keep wondering about her aunt and their relationship and how Chimo is going to end up.
I would recommend it to anyone who likes deep relationship stories and movies. It has a charm about it like City of God or Lost in Translation. It also delves into a culture all its own in this Arab part of France. I love the real-life struggle that the police get from the Arab man in his car, and some comment about how he didn't blow up any buildings, or something to that effect...good social commentary from the other side of the spectrum for people here in the U.S.
I gave it a 7 star rating. Definitely above average twist yet pulls back from being an epic film by simply stating things which may be true without getting too out of control with meaning or existentialism or anything else. Very good, go rent it today.