How Much Do You Love Me?

How Much Do You Love Me? (Combien tu m'aimes?, 2005) is a French-Italian comedy-drama you can watch online on iFILM. Written and directed by Bertrand Blier, the film follows François (Bernard Campan), a quiet Parisian who wins the lottery and heads straight to a Pigalle bar with a proposition: one hundred thousand euros a month for Daniela (Monica Bellucci) to come live with him as his wife, for as long as the money holds out.

Daniela accepts. The arrangement that follows is where Blier does what Blier does — ordinary domestic life slides into the surreal without warning, the emotional register shifts unpredictably, and then Gérard Depardieu walks in and takes the whole thing somewhere else entirely. Bellucci carries the film's center of gravity; her Daniela is more than the premise suggests, and the film earns its moments of unexpected tenderness. Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Sara Forestier round out the cast.

Stream How Much Do You Love Me? (2005) on iFILM — Blier at his most playfully off-kilter, asking what happens when desire gets a budget.