I fell hard for Kristin Scott Thomas in The English Patient. My affection carried over to The Horse Whisperer, which I more kind toward than I probably should have been, chiefly due to Thomas' presence. By the time of Gosford Park -- a superb movie -- she no longer had a hold over me. I don't think I've seen her in anything since, and I'd begun to forget about her.

She's back, serving notice that she shouldn't be forgotten. It's gratifying to see a "comeback performance" from Thomas garner this sort of attention. I look forward to seeing the film.

I just came from a sneak preview of the directorial debut by novelist Philippe Claudel: I've Loved You So Long.

As you've probably read, Kristin Scott Thomas is very good. Her French is so flawless, and her performance so unlike anything she's done before, that it was like being introduced to an entirely different actress.

It's Thomas that's going to get the attention, but I was even more taken with Elsa Zylberstein's performance as her sister. In some ways, she has the more complicated part to play.

Any of the film's several main characters could have easily been overplayed. I appreciated the restraint.

But I still feel there's something lacking here... perhaps because the director is a novelist. The film told the story without overexplaining things, but there was very little visual imagination at work. Claudel has written a strong screenplay, and seems to be very good at drawing out subtle, revealing moments from talented actors. But there wasn't a moment in the film that struck me as visually inventive.

Anyway, I strongly recommend it, and I look forward to seeing what Claudel does next.

I saw this one at the festival last night, and liked it, though not as much as Olivier Assayas's Summer Hours, which I saw at the festival the night before. (There's no real comparison, apart from the fact that both films are in French and involve multigenerational families. So don't read too much into the fact that I mention them side-by-side like this.)

The interesting thing is that this movie is so good at fleshing out the process by which Scott Thomas's character tentatively, hesitantly, awkwardly reintegrates herself into society that you almost forget to wonder just why she did what she did in the first place. And when the movie DOES deign to answer that question, in its closing reels, the answer doesn't... entirely... work. A thoroughly secular colleague of mine felt that way for pure storytelling reasons. For me, there was an added moral qualm.


Oh, I just want to say one other thing: THANK YOU to whoever subtitled this film, for including the lyrics to the song(s) that are sung. So many times, the subtitles leave out the songs. But it turns out that the title of this film COMES from a song that is sung by the characters. That may be an important detail, I think. So, thank you, subtitlers, thank you.

Overstreet wrote:
: As you've probably read, Kristin Scott Thomas is very good. Her French is so flawless, and her performance so unlike anything she's done before, that it was like being introduced to an entirely different actress.

Apparently she's made several films in France, in French. Have you seen Tell No One yet? I saw that one a few weeks ago, and I was expecting her to have a much bigger role than she did, probably because I had heard the buzz on THIS film and I got the two of them confused.

: It's Thomas that's going to get the attention, but I was even more taken with Elsa Zylberstein's performance as her sister. In some ways, she has the more complicated part to play.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

She has lived in France since she was 16 (she's now 48), is a French citizen and thinks of herself as French.

I'm really looking forward to this film.

OK, I got the title wrong, but that won't stop me from issuing an AHEM. Since I blew the title, should I integrate that post into this thread?

EDIT: No, I was right, and all you fools is wrong!

You're right.

Weird. Look at this.

Apple Trailers got it wrong too.

Will somebody please combine the two threads (moving this one to merge with Christian's)?

Link to the second thread on this film.

Tony Watkins wrote:
: She has lived in France since she was 16 (she's now 48), is a French citizen and thinks of herself as French.

Huh. I heard of her French residency when she recorded the voice-over for Microcosmos back in '95 or thereabouts, but I wasn't aware her roots went back that far.

Interestingly, her character in this film is described as having an "accent", or some such thing, because she is Anglo-French and not French-French. (When her mother speaks in English, it is with a perfectly English accent.)

Incidentally, the title of this thread is, in fact, the correct title of the film (or at least the correct ENGLISH title), as per the IMDb and the VIFF (which is where I saw the film). No need to add any prepositions.

vjmorton's review is worth linking to here -- excellent points, and they bring together the moral and dramatic objections to the ending (that my colleague and I had raised separately at the festival screening) in a satisfying way.