Cannes Review: Gaspar Noé's Hardcore And Softhearted 'Love'

NSFW! NSFW! The marketing campaign for Gaspar Noé's hotly, wetly anticipated "Love" (in 3D!) threatened to do for that acronym what early '90s hip-hop did for the Parental Advisory sticker. But laying to rest any fears that it was all a publicity ploy and Noe was going to pull a massive bait and switch and give us "A Room with a View," the film starts with a happy ending: the two attractive stars lie splayed on top of one another in media res of an act of vigorous mutual masturbation, that eventually comes to its predictable, sticky conclusion. You'll be glad to know that the terrible infant's latest film is almost wholly Not Safe For Work, unless you work at a porn store, or a sperm bank, or a film blog, in any of which cases it may seem unsatisfying for your purposes anyway, though for slightly different reasons.

Perhaps I should start by mentioning that there are no winners in the game of defending "Love," because there are many, many, many...