Love Is Not Love

Well photographed yet predominantly intolerable, Love Is Not Love follows an older man (Stephen Keep Mills’ Frank) as he tentatively embarks on a relationship with Alejandra Gollas’ Reyna – despite the fact that he’s still married to Louise Martin’s Paula. It’s a straight-forward premise that’s employed to mostly abstract, avant-garde effect by filmmaker Mills, as the writer/director has infused every inch of Love Is Not Love with an unapologetically art-house sensibility that just doesn’t work in the slightest – with the picture’s arms-length atmosphere compounded by an almost total lack of fully-developed, three-dimensional characters (ie these people are, for the most part, merely mouthpieces for Mills’ various thoughts and musings about contemporary romance). And although the movie admittedly does boast striking visuals, courtesy of cinematographer Steven Michael Fadellin, Love Is Not Love proves hopelessly unable to even partially capture the viewer’s interest or attention for the duration of its interminable 94 minutes and it’s clear that the picture, ultimately, would be far more at home as an installation within a particularly experimental art gallery.

* out of ****