Movie Review - I've Loved You So Long

Genre: Drama

Director: Philippe Claudel

Starring: Kristen Scott Thomas, Elsa Zylberstein

Time: 115 minutes (plus trailers)

I hated this movie, and in my review, I will try to explain why. However, in order to effectively do so, the review will contain MASSIVE SPOILERS. If you are reading this, then you are probably in the same demographic as me, and therefore have little or no interest in seeing the film (which was Frances nomination for Best Foreign Picture at this year Golden Globes.) If you are planning on seeing it and don’t want it spoiled, then don’t read this review. Or, alternatively, read it, don’t see the movie and thus spare yourself the suffering.

I’ve Loved You So Long is a tale of two sisters, Juliette (played by Kristen Scott Thomas) and Lea (played by Elsa Zylberstein.) Juliette has spent the last fifteen years of her life in prison for murdering her six year old son, and the film opens with sister Lea picking her up from the airport immediately following her release. The two have not seen each other since Lea was a girl, but she none the less invites her parolee sibling to stay with her husband and their two young daughters in their home in the French countryside. The film show us Juliette’s attempts to reconnect with a world that she has been ostracised from, as well as the slow rebuilding of the shattered relationship between the two women.

To be honest, I wasn’t really looking forward to this film. The trailer looks incredibly melodramatic, and as far as I could tell, nothing much happened in the film. That trailer, plus the fact that it was in French, and was only playing at the more artsy theatres meant that under normal circumstances I would have let this one pass me by. But since I have begun writing reviews, I have been determined to see the more obscure pictures that previously would have gone under my radar. For the most part, this has served me well, as some films such as Slumdog Millionaire or Let The Right One In have not received wide releases, and yet I would consider them to be among my favourite of the past twelve months. But in the case of this movie, I would have been far better off going to see some Hollywood blockbuster than spend two hours in the theatre with this monotonous exercise in pretentiousness.

This film is dull. From the start to the end, almost nothing interesting happens. Julliette is released from prison, and goes to stay with the family. Her brother in law is uncomfortable with her being around the children, which is understandable given her crime. This film has zero narrative drive because there is no overall goal for any of the characters; instead we are given scene after scene of Juliette doing uninteresting things; playing with her nieces, checking in with her parole officer, trying to find work and so on. Some critics might consider this art, but I just found it boring. The editing is a major problem; most of the praise for this film surrounds Kristen Scott Thomas performance, and I will admit that she is terrific, as is Elsa Zylberstein, but unfortunately there are no scenes long enough for us to appreciate how good they are. Every time things start to look promising, the director cuts us to another location, and we have no idea how much time has passed. Additionally, because we never spend enough time with minor characters such as Lea’s mute father in law, or Juliette’s parole officer or love interest, we never develop a strong attachment to them, and they therefore seem superfluous.

There are two kinds of dialogue in this film: The unbelievable kind that has been inserted to serve a plot point, and the god awful kind that attempts to be subtle and/or symbolic. No one in the film speaks like a normal human being, and everything that people say or do works solely to move the story forward, instead of to develop the characters. The scene where this is most apparent is the one that was featured heavily in the trailer: Juliet and her family are having dinner with friends, and one slightly drunk man asks her where she has been all this time. His character only appears in that scene, and the only reason he exists is to cause that confrontation. There are also numerous scenes when someone unaware of Juliette’s incarceration will mention prisons, thus causing an awkward exchange of glances among two or more characters ‘in the know.’ The second kind of dialogue can be found in the frequent attempts to give a scene multiple meanings. For example, when the two sisters are sitting playing a duet on the piano, the song they play just happens to relate perfectly to their situation. While I will concede that some of the nuance may have been lost in translation, this is still some of the most lazy and heavy handed screenwriting I have ever witnessed.

All these problems make I’ve Loved You So Long a bad film. But it is ending, the final twist, that voids this movie of all redeeming features. At the end of the film, it is revealed that the reason that Juliette murdered her son was because he was terminally ill. This is a bad ending for a number of reasons

1. It was predictable. I spent the entire movie hoping this twist wasn’t coming, but the moment that Lea finds a piece of paper hidden in her sisters room, I put my head in my hands
2. It made no sense. Julliette states that her son was so sick that he had been suffering from seizures, and was in agonizing pain, and that the reason she killed him was to end his suffering. But are we to honestly expect that the boy’s father didn’t notice his son twitching on the floor?
3. It completely nullifies any interest you might have in Juliet’s character. If she killed her son in a drunken rage, or because she was depressed, it adds a layer of complexity to her character. Throughout the film, you cannot help but feel sorry for her, even thoug you know she is a killer. Stating that she killed out of mercy removes any uncertainty in the audiences feelings towards her.

The film is about the relationship between the two sisters, and the final line of the film (a particularly painful piece of dialogue) implies that their relationship is finally on the mend. Why? Who knows, but the director clearly wants to leave you with that impression. The only positive things about this movie is the acting and the cinematography, which is sometimes quite beautiful. Don’t believe what the critics say about this film, because they’re just afraid of looking stupid. It’s an example of the emperor’s new clothes syndrome; if a film is a) depressing or b) realistic, people feels a need to praise it in order to make themselves seem cultured (this is doubly so for foreign films). This movie is not art; it is boring, badly written, and ultimately pointless. Sadly, I haven’t learned anything from this experience, as the next film I’m going to review is The Class, another highly acclaimed French film. Fingers crossed.

I've Loved You So Long is in cinemas now.