Tag Archives: Kristin Scott Thomas

I’ve Loved You So Long

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ive_loved_you_so_long.jpg

 

Writer / direc­tor Philippe Claudel’s I’ve Loved You So Long is a text­book exer­cise in the dra­matic with­hold­ing of nar­ra­tive infor­ma­tion. Juli­ette (Kristin Scott Thomas) is released from prison after serv­ing 15 years for an unspec­i­fied crime, and is unwill­ingly housed with her sis­ter Léa (Elsa Zyl­ber­stein). Léa is ini­tially her only ally, and her hus­band Luc (Serge Haz­anavi­cius) is dis­trust­ful for what turns out to be very good rea­son. Léa and Luc have adopted two chil­dren (a big clue to the cen­tral mys­tery of the movie), includ­ing their pre­co­cious older daugh­ter P’tit Lys (Lise Ségur, a rare movie tyke that is actu­ally endear­ing). As part of her pro­ba­tion, Juli­ette is required to sign in weekly with a lonely cop (Frédéric Pier­rot) with even more psy­cho­log­i­cal issues than she. The slow leak of infor­ma­tion ramps up the drama, but we’re told just enough to see that the movie is actu­ally about Juliette’s grad­ual, some­times painful reen­try into life, not her mys­te­ri­ous crime.

Kristen Scott Thomas in I've Loved You So Long

Thomas’s unshowy per­for­mance is act­ing of the high­est degree. The British already proved her flu­ency in French in Tell No One (read The Dork Report review), although a line of dia­logue here explains away her accent. She doesn’t dis­tract by invit­ing the audi­ence to be con­stantly impressed at how tal­ented she is. But that said, there were a few moments where I mar­veled at the com­plex emo­tions she con­veyed. Two scenes in par­tic­u­lar stand out: Juli­ette almost phys­i­cally recoils when intro­duced to Léa’s col­league Michel (Lau­rent Grévill) and when reunited with her estranged mother. Also watch for the almost inde­scrib­ably com­plex expres­sion that plays across her face when she meets a sleazy bloke in a pub shortly after her release.

Kristen Scott Thomas and Elsa Zylberstein in I've Loved You So Long

Only two fac­tors kept me from con­sid­er­ing the movie more highly. There’s a seem­ingly extra­ne­ous and unre­solved sub­plot about Léa ignor­ing a stu­dent who appears to have a crush on her, and claims he’s a sub­ject of prej­u­dice. Was the point merely that Léa is an attrac­tive, sym­pa­thetic per­son? Sec­ondly, the movie arguably descends into talky melo­drama at the very end; with­out reveal­ing too much, we learn the truth about what moti­vated Juliette’s crime, and why she stub­bornly kept her silence for so long.

Offi­cial movie site: www.sonyclassics.com/ivelovedyousolong

Buy the DVD from Ama­zon and kick back a few pen­nies to The Dork Report.

Né le dis à personne (Tell No One)

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Ne le dis à personne (Tell No One)

 

Tell No One enjoyed a sur­pris­ingly wide US the­atri­cal release for a French film with­out huge English-speaking stars (except for Eng­lish­woman Kristin Scott Thomas, per­fectly flu­ent in French). Roger Ebert rightly com­pared the tightly crafted thriller with The Fugi­tive, plac­ing it squarely in Hitch­cock­ian wrong-man-accused territory.

Pedi­a­tri­cian Alex Beck (François Cluzet) finds him­self the prime sus­pect of his wife’s mur­der, eight years prior. This being a French film, the fortysome­thing Beck was mar­ried to the utterly gor­geous younger Mar­got (Marie-Josee Croze, great in Julien Schnabel’s The Div­ing Bell and the But­ter­fly — read The Dork Report review). One might accept this as a given premise of the story, for some­times old coots really do bag hot young wives, had the film not ruined it by demon­strat­ing via flash­back that the char­ac­ters are sup­posed to be the same age.

Ne le dis à personne (Tell No One)Run Beck Run

I found Tell No One more focused and engag­ing before the con­spir­acy widens to an almost absurd degree, envelop­ing even a Sen­a­tor in a vast cover-up. I will admit to being con­fused at times; to grasp the details and con­vo­luted time­line, view­ers will have to remem­ber char­ac­ter names, not faces, as the chronol­ogy of some key plot points are con­veyed via expo­si­tion (that is, told, not shown).

Ne le dis à personne (Tell No One)Funny how bad things hap­pen to peo­ple who skinny dip in movies…

Hints of the recent race/class ten­sions in France are built into the plot: Beck’s equa­nim­ity as a pedi­a­tri­cian earned the trust of some less priv­i­leged thugs on the wrong side of the law. That they will aid him when no one else will iron­i­cally demon­strates his essen­tial goodness.

Offi­cial movie site: www.tellno-one.com

Buy the DVD from Ama­zon and kick back a few pen­nies to The Dork Report.