I can’t really believe how bad Little White Lies was. It’s from the guy who made the (perhaps accidental) masterpiece Tell No One. It had those two great guys from Tell No One, plus Marion Cotillard (who could object to her in a movie?) and the “French George Clooney.” It had a soundtrack of terrific old American pop music. It had a sort-of beautiful location. And like a lot of the shit out of France these days, it was directly inspired by retro Hollywood.

And yet it totally sucks in every conceivable way. The set up is abominable – it took me half the movie to figure out who everyone was, and to determine that no one was a blood relative of anyone else. (I’m still not sure that old oyster guy was not Lugo’s dad.) The characters are completely foul and unlikable, to the last, and to the very end. All those charismatic and attractive actors are completely wasted in this film – you can’t even enjoy looking at them because everything out of their mouths is so puerile and insensitive. The story is shallow and incoherent, and with a few scattered exceptions, completely unfunny. And the movie rides its soundtrack shamelessly, a soundtrack way too good to be wasted on dreck like this. Even worse, it frequently overrides and obliterates dialog scenes with blaring music, in a lame attempt at stimulating some emotion in the viewer. (I ask you: Why do the French insist on mimicking the worst filmmaking techniques of Hollywood?)

Even if you like some of the stuff coming out of this new French Hollywood, I would recommend that you skip Little White Lies. It’s a total waste of time.