Les adoptés

My women friends loved this, while my male friends and I squirmed through what seemed a painfully long drawn out predictable story. In drama of all sorts, when someone is so happy at the start you can just see the bad news coming. Life and the Film Business should have taught us all by now that the writer/actor/director/ roles combined in one human being is usually not a wise move. Sadly, this film proves it. I am sure Melanie Laurent will go on to do more good films (If you direct don't act - If you act please don't direct) but "The Adopted" could do with some much firmer discipline in cutting and moving the story along. I loved some of the acting sequences woman-to-woman in the book shop (that marvellous book shop owner!) and probably my favorite scene is the young boy talking to his dead aunt in his treasured Polaroid picture that scene really is film - underline film!

you have to admit that when the french got a very good screenplay, then found a very good director, then the casting c.s.a. did a great job to find the appropriate actors to play it, then that film would be nothing but great, and this film just proved it. this is a very simply straight forward movie that we might or might not have watched before. the storyline is actually with one pretty directional development. the deep love of two young women, one of them was adopted as an orphan by a loving single-parental, free-willed independent mother, the elder sister treated the adopted one like a real sister. and the elder dramatically was a second generation single parent with a love young boy(who acted so naturally well and lovable in this film). the adopted daughter working in a bookstore with a lonely, always complaining, insecure female owner (also played so naturally well). she fell in love with a man who came in to seek sanctuary from the rain. they fell in love(gradually and also, so naturally in this film without any forced falsehood). she was loved so deeply by that man and sometimes so fearful of the commitment and wanted to escape the relationship and still tried to stay with her adopted family, her sister, her nephew, and her adopted mother.

there were so many profound dialog about love, anti-commitment, family value, how to deal with personal demons, how to be loved and why you must love, why you have to seek someone out from the crowd and choose him or her for your life and the only person who would occupy in your whole life after you've found him or her.

and of course, the moon could never be always full, and flowers could never be stayed blossomed and always radiate wonderful smells. tragedy got to happen to make a drama evolve into the second but deeper level. and the scenario and the plot were both predictable and one directional, but in a very good development by the very crafty screenplay.

there is a very subtle agenda and ingredient in this movie that strongly claimed: the unavoidable loss and repetition of the fate; the fatal and doomed outcomes of the unforeseeable future (but is it really so foreseeable and/or so unpredictable? i don't think so). there seems an unsee-able being that we call 'fate' hiding behind everybody's life, manipulating you to go or reroute the paths of your life.

the other thought floated up when the movie came to end was: why french movie always used American pop songs at the beginning, in between and in the finale? are American songs the only choice that could be more compatible with a french movie? or the french sound trackers for their movies always considered American songs could match their movies more appropriately? or they thought the french songs in their french movies are not quite matching? what is it? this is a question that always came up onto my mind when watching the European movies, it's not just french movie only, German, Holland, the scandinavians, east europeans...they always chose American songs for their own unique movies. this is a myth that i'd like all the movie industries of all the countries other than the American to think about seriously. what's wrong with your own songs that you prefer not using them instead of the Americans?

As much as I adore Mélanie Laurent as both an actor and a director, it's taken me a long time to get around to watching this, and I couldn't say why. I'm so glad to have gotten over that reticence, however, because simply put, from top to bottom I love it. Whether a scene specifically employs close-up shots or not, there's a gratifying personal touch to Laurent's direction here, an intimacy, that's feels very appropriate for a story of drama that hits so close to home. That certainly stems as well from the screenplay she wrote with Morgan Perez and Christophe Deslandes, a blend of awkward interpersonal relations, weighty emotional material, and sparing humor to offer light counterbalance. I don't think it's unreasonable to also say that some aspects of the narrative are borderline kitschy, representative of tropes, but even then I think the writing is otherwise strong enough, and certainly the direction, to compensate for such commonness. Yes, I was hesitant to watch 'Les adoptés,' or 'The adopted,' for reasons I can't explain, but the fact is that this is just as terrific as most anything Laurent has made, and possibly more impactful.

Laurent again illustrates what an outstanding actor she is, playing Lisa with a range that if anything is perhaps more soft and fragile, and less severe, than what some of her other roles have required; as ever, it's simply a joy to watch her. It's also a small point of delight to see her act opposite Denis Ménochet, meaningfully sharing scenes a couple years after they both starred, separately, in Quentin Tarantino's 'Inglourious Basterds.' As much as Ménochet impressed with the quiet desperation of his one shining moment in the latter, here we get to see far more of his excellent skill set as a performer, and it's clear to me I need to seek out more of his films. This is hardly to count out anyone else on hand, for Marie Denarnaud, Clémentine Célarié, Audrey Lamy, and even young Théodore Maquet-Foucher all unquestionably make their mark on this picture, but there can be no doubt that Ménochet and Laurent are the chief stars, and very much prove why in these 100 minutes. All the great skills of the cast, of Laurent as director, and of the writing team are bent toward making the story as hard-hitting as it could be while remaining smartly balanced, avoiding the pitfalls of what could have very easily become melodrama. There's a congenial gentleness to how the feature is crafted that lets the gravity of each beat land delicately, but also nevertheless be all the more ponderous for how they are sneak in under the proverbial radar. And I couldn't be more pleased with the result.

It rather goes without saying that this is wonderfully well made in every other capacity, including fine cinematography, shrewd editing, lovely hair, makeup, and costume design, and solid production design. While it mostly keeps to the background, any music employed throughout is tasteful and lends to the overarching mood. Yet the considerable strength 'Les adoptés' bears inarguably lies in the core pillars of its construction: sharp writing, including very real, human characters, a compelling and engaging narrative, and powerful, dynamic scene writing; superb acting, bringing those characters and the tale to vivid life; and the supreme intelligence and mindful hand orchestrating every shot and scene, showing even in only her directorial debut that Laurent had firm command of the medium. Truthfully I think it would be very easy to speak at much greater length about how very much I enjoyed this, but maybe not without betraying spoilers. Suffice to say that for whatever I thought the movie might be, and for whatever infinitesimal reservations might have fleetingly entered my mind at one point or another throughout, all worries are handily cast aside by the tremendous quality this boasts. It strikes deep and hard, but only with brilliant finesse, and it might actually be my favorite of anything that Laurent has directed to date, which is saying a lot. I'm so very happy with just how good 'Les adoptés' is, and I can only give it my hearty, enthusiastic recommendation - in my opinion this is absolutely worth anyone's time.