Rolling its credits over shots of Audrey Tautou's face beaming amid a sea of roses, looking as if the world were designed as a playground for her whimsy, He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not at first looks like it's composed of deleted scenes from Amelie. In fact, the film's best moments come when Tautou, whether by design or accident, teases the image cemented by that film. Playing an artist in love with married cardiologist Samuel Le Bihan, Tautou cheerfully tries to push fate in the direction of her desire, whether by elaborate displays of affection or by arranged mishaps. Even when entertaining the cruelest of thoughts, she has the look of a pixie who just discovered how a machine gun works. French director/co-writer Laetitia Colombani must have guts, using an international sweetheart to such twisted ends. Unfortunately, that's the best idea to be found in her feature debut, although not for a lack of trying. Through He Loves Me's first act, Colombani stays sympathetic to Tautou, portraying a woman scorned and abandoned by her lover until she attempts suicide. Act two follows Le Bihan, and shows the same events from a different angle. It's like He Said, She Said, with miscarriages and strange art projects taking the place of Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth Perkins. Or it would be, if Colombani didn't just show what she needs to show to slant viewers' perception one way in the first part, then reveal the whole story in the second. It's clever enough, but it's mostly a contrivance to hide the fact that there's nothing interesting about the story itself, which is basically a variation on the Hand That Rocks The Cradle/The Crush/The Temp formula with striking camerawork and a sauce- and cheese-based national cuisine. When the big gimmick gives way to a climax that takes the film from contrived to ridiculous, it's hard not to feel duped instead of merely disappointed.