Sadly, playwright Wendy Kesselman's sensitive story about anti-Semitism is rather forcibly directed by former casting agent Billy Hopkins, as if this were not so much a feature film as a glorified after-school special for TV. Despite that, the film largely works on the strength of its two leads: Claire Danes, who plays a young Jewish girl identified as such at her private, coed high school, and Jeanne Moreau, who plays her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. As Danes's character is increasingly shunned and becomes a target of bigotry and vandalism, Moreau's loving grandma helps keep her from going over the edge.
The film also concerns the high price of being different on many fronts. Not only is Danes's young heroine dissimilar to her friends because she's Jewish, she's also intense, keenly intelligent, and a poetry lover. When she falls for a callow stud at school who worries about the opinion of his idiotic friends, she feels for the first time the pain of being rejected for being who she is. Moreau is magnificent as the lifelong survivor who knows when to give her granddaughter refuge and when to push her into the real world to find her own footing. Danes's performance reads like a map of increasingly exciting things to come in her career; there are moments in this film when you look at her and can see the consummate actress in her future. --Tom Keogh
2.
Daisy, a shy, intelligent Jewish nonconformist, chafes at the rigid norms and snobbish attitudes that prevail in her elite, predominantly Gentile Manhattan boarding school. She takes refuge at the nearby house of her strong-willed grandmother, whose mentoring helps Daisy face the challenge of being herself--even after the most sought-after boy in school wants Daisy to change for him. Based on the stage play by Wendy Kesselman.
3.
Hot young stars Claire Danes (Les Miserables, William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet) and Jude Law (Gattaca, The Talented Mr. Ripley) heat up the screen in this passionate story about fitting in... and falling in love! Head-turning cute, but painfully shy and self-conscious, Daisy (Danes) feels like a complete outsider at her stuffy New York prep school. So when she catches the eye of the coolest guy in school, Daisy is totally psyched... but afraid that opening up too much might blow it for her. Also starring legendary Jeanne Moreau (Ever After, The Summer House), I Love You, I Love You Not is the film that proves dreams worth having are definitely worth wishing for!
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