Joe + Belle

Joe + Belle tells the story of Joe, a drug dealer who comes home one day to find Belle having broken in and about to commit suicide in Joe’s bathroom. Joe falls instantly in love. From there, the women have a bunch of misadventures that always end in them beating up or killing a man. At the end, they live happily ever after. I guess the moral of the story if if you kill one dude, going on a bit of a crime spree is the best way to ensure no consequences for your actions.

The thing I was most let down with in Joe + Belle was the fact that it was a “dark comedy.” At the best of times, that’s a difficult genre to pull of. Mixing the right blend of humour and dark subject matter is tough and Joe + Belle was not ready for the challenge. The film ended up neither as dark and dramatic nor does it end up as even kind of funny. The most painful part is that I saw the movie trying. But it just kept failing miserably. The physical comedy is particularly bad. 

Another problem with the comedy in Joe + Belle is that there’s three different languages spoken in this film. Verbal comedy can be one of the hardest things to translate. Maybe there were some jokes that were funny but just weren’t funny enough to breach the language barrier and work in subtitles as opposed to hearing them. But I doubt it.

Either way, having dialogue-based jokes in three different languages is a bad idea. It severely limits the number of audience members who can get full enjoyment of the dialogue to those who know Hebrew, French and English. The fact that the jokes do fail to translate or land when they’re experienced as subtitles already suggests a poor quality of material. Its use of several languages just further ensures that nobody is going to find this movie funny.

As far as characters go, this movie also failed. I didn’t care about either of our protagonists. The writer doesn’t know how to write a good anti-hero. I wasn’t rooting for these characters. I was mostly just thinking that the two leads should probably be arrested.

As for the relationship, I was pretty ambivalent about it. The relationship in Thelma and Louise for example worked partially because they had an already established friendship. (It’s also just an overall more competently-made movie which definitely helps.) Joe + Belle is more of an impulsive pairing of the two female leads and as a couple. Their relationship just suddenly happens and doesn’t really develop going forward.

It also harms the relationship that Belle is fucking insane. I don’t really know why I was supposed to be happy that they got away scott-free when Belle is seriously fucked up and needs some psychological help.

Joe + Belle was a waste of my time. It made me a little sad because I really wanted to like this movie and it was trying its hardest. Sadly, for as hard as Joe + Belle tried, it didn’t succeed on any level.

Overall rating: 3.4/10

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