I've Loved You So Long (Philippe Claudel, 2008)

[LQ]

Trailer
I searched and didn't find a thread for this...has anyone seen it? In general, I prefer Kristen Scott Thomas when she acts in French, and this looks interesting.

[mfunk9786]

I can't wait to see this. The trailer is bizzarely haunting after she reveals why she was away for so long, it's the kind of character I want to find out more about as soon as possible.

[Zazou dans le Metro]

I can't wait to see this. The trailer is bizzarely haunting after she reveals why she was away for so long, it's the kind of character I want to find out more about as soon as possible.

The "reveal' although truthful is in fact ironic as we have long discovered the reason for her absence. It is however to the film's and KST's great credit that we don't actually witness or learn much more about the 'character'. It is in short a very classy and surefooted melodrama rather than a thriller. Although at no stage overtly cranking up the 'creepiness' of having a "killer" under the same roof as two cute kids it manages to create a sharing of unease more than nail biting tension.

In terms of character development Zylberstein has more to play with and is almost the equal of KST here. However for the chattering classes it's Oscar worthiness will probably centre on KST's performance and her 'bravery' appearing haggard and drawn. After having exhausted the disabled,autistic and dysfunctional roles perhaps now we have willingness to appear sans maquillage that will garner most votes come February.

The denouement will no doubt disappoint many as it did some of my friends who had already dismissed the reason for her crime as too blaringly obvious. Be that as it may it is again thanks to the performances that made it for me less of an issue as it deals with the repercussions of familial damage rather than tease with the whys and wherefores .

[AWA]

I saw this tonight and it was definitely held together and made watchable by the acting performances, some of which were better than others. The Cinematography was, IMO, for the most part standard fare and added nothing to what could have been an otherwise beautiful film. For a film with a writer behind it, the overall plot hinged on a pretty predictable outcome that I could see coming a mile away.

Spoiler

It might have been more of a challenge to find a way to take the hard road here, but alas the film's journey through a damaged family was more important than the actual crime in the end. The final scene seemed stitched on and unnecessary - that emotional confrontation was not needed and it might have been better to end it with the sister finding out and knowing what her sister had known the whole time - on the inside.

The soundtrack also completely undermined the film - the sentimental guitar pap tracks were a dead giveaway for how the film would play out. And some of the scenes of the "good times" were undermined by the panderingly polite score.

Still - a decent film with strong performances that disguised some of the short comings of the script.

[menthymenthy]

It was a decent film, that happened to be incredibly flawed - especially the reveal which was just impossible.

Still, KST was very good, and the film is kind of worth watching.

[MichaelB]

I'm pretty much with the consensus here - KST and Zylberstein are outstanding (in fact, the whole cast is excellent), but it suffered badly from an overly self-conscious structure whereby new pieces of information about the sisters' past were drip-fed in an off-puttingly calculated fashion.

And the eleventh-hour revelation was a complete cop-out - and hugely unsatisfactory in any case because

Spoiler

there is no way, unless she'd had the most inept defence team in legal history, that she'd have been given a fifteen-year prison sentence under those circumstances. Absolutely no way. A suspended sentence would have been by far the most likely outcome.

I was also none too impressed with the blatant contrivance - Juliette just happened to have left a conveniently revelatory document at precisely the right time when its contents might be narratively significant.

It's a shame, because the film had quite a bit going for it otherwise.

[AWA]

It is quite ironic that most of the major problems with this film are in the writing - which was supposed to be a strong point. The dialogue at times was pretty stiff too - the stuff that's fine in a book but bad for the screen.