User Reviews

A thoroughly tedious 'thriller', Honeymoon is the sort of film that gives Canadian cinema a bad name. Nathalie Baye stars as Cecile, a French immigrant in New York who tries to verbally bully some IRS agents into letting her stay in the US so she can stay close to her imprisoned boyfriend. Needless to say, this clever ploy fails, and she's forced into a loveless marriage with scum o' the earth Zack Freestamp (John Shea), who's a bit of a psycho. The film is tedious at best and is about a million miles away from the 'horror' genre it's been crammed into. The video box art is even more deceptive, implying supernatural elements that simply aren't here. One word review: boring.

I don't get the hate on this movie. I missed the first 15mins (it was on B-Movie TV) so perhaps the setup is bad but I couldn't turn it off.

John Shea is one of the creepiest stalkers I've seen in a while. He's handsome, charming, a bit of a schlub and very charismatic. Pauline Kael once said that Dustin Hoffman was so great in Rainman because he finally didn't have to be bothered with other actors. But Shea uses this to great effect, clueless as to what's going on around him and set in his certainty that his cause is just and the world is there for him.

Nathalie Baye does a look with the thankless role of the victim. She's not an idiot, simpering and powerless. She takes control of a horrible situation and while it doesn't get better (and the script gives her bad choices) she's compelling to watch.

Richard Berry, Baye's incarcerated boyfriend, has possibly the worst role which is to sit behind plexiglass and try to look sympathetic...and he succeeds. His line readings are pretty amazing. He asks Baye if she's screwing anyone while he's in jail but it's not accusatory as much as it is resigned.

Some of the supporting cast is annoying and some of the scenes are contrived but the lead up to the final scene where Shea take Baye to slice her up is still steady and controlled. Shea's speech about what her death will feel like is chillingly comforting. He truly wants her to feel safe as she's dying and not be scared.

Is it action packed? No. It's not that kind of a movie. But it's claustrophobic and effective.

(Includes Spoilers) We all know what the French are known for. And we know that that certain something ISN'T horror. Anyway, HONEYMOON deals with a woman who comes to New York from France to be with her boyfriend who's been arrested for drug possession. To keep from being deported, she goes to The Honeymoon Agency and gets a "husband" so that she can stay in America. A good plot is given plodding treatment, which isn't good. John Shea is fabulous as the "husband". He really is menacing and really gets into the role. Nathalie Baye is okay. I felt that she could have given a better performance. All in all, the film basically goes from one step to the next with about three deaths and very little, if any, action. I actually purchased this film in the Montreal Underground Mall. It had a New World (U.S.) box cover with a Malofilm (Canada) video. It was in English, which surprised me because it was originally in French, then dubbed in English. But since Montreal is a French city, why wouldn't they have the original French version? Oh well. **out of****Okay movie. I think that the best thing was the boxcover, showing a skeleton in a wedding gown that includes a supposed fact that so many women will get married a year and that 1/3 of them will die. I doubt that that's a fact. Anyway, see this film only if you're a hardcore horror fan. Hardcore horror fans should at least find this mildly entertaining.

"Honeymoon" (a.k.a. "Lune de Miel") has a great premise, dealing with a foreign woman who on paper has a marriage of convenience with an unknown American in order to be able to stay in New York - and then the unknown American starts showing up in her life, and given that she did an illegal act, can't do anything about it. As I said, a great premise, but the end results are severely botched. The first half of the movie is very repetitive, with the loony American showing up over and over again, with no advance to the story at all. In the second half of the movie, things start to get ridiculous, with characters making stupid decisions, and the entire enterprise is capped with a climax you've seen hundreds of other times in other third-rate thrillers. If you want to see a *good* French thriller, look for a copy of "Tell No One" instead of this loser.