Romance

a difficult film to love - perhaps as difficult as Marie finds it to love Paul - although there is something in its exploration of gender norms, deviant desires and the split between body and mind that remains compelling to the finish.

Romance can't be easily shrugged off. Breillat and her brave actors take us places we haven't been. For the audience, as well as Marie, it's a journey that has few signposts.

It cries out for interpretation, but then it doesn’t trust us to do it — the movie helpfully interprets itself at every turn.

Breillat is less interested in the sex acts than their deeper meaning.

Porn has never been so sleep-inducing.

The bottom line is acting out sexual urges and fantasies normally acceptable only in male characters, as the actress philosophizes with an assortment of cocks, determined to 'rape myself,' in a clinical orgy with a roomful of aspiring young gynecologists.