The Man Who Loved Women Reviews

Truffaut's swiftly paced, light-hearted exercise concerns a man whose very existence is devoted to women--a man perhaps not unlike Truffaut himself. Denner is the amorous title male, a well-off researcher who is surely one of the most woman-crazy men ever to appear on film. He can't keep his mind off women; a mere glance at one femme dressed in black silk stockings sends him on a long journey toward love. All the while that Denner chases skirts, he remains charming and innocent, never believing he is doing anything wrong or harmful. Unlike those men who abuse women, Denner adores them--all of them. THE MAN WHO LOVED WOMEN is filled with Truffaut's ironic sense of humor, always charming, and never in any way offending. As in all of Truffaut's romantic comedies, what appears as flippant and sugary is actually a cover for some very complex statements about the nature of love, Truffaut himself, and the cinema. In this sense THE MAN WHO LOVED WOMEN can be viewed, along with THE STORY OF ADELE H. and THE GREEN ROOM, as part of a trilogy about unrequited love and frustrating obsessions. A Hollywood remake of this film appeared in 1983, directed by Blake Edwards and starring Burt Reynolds.