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This is Norwegian director Erik Poppe's fourth feature film, and a film which many have had high expectations too. I must say this is a good film, but far from his best. I simply loved "Hawaii, Oslo" and "Troubled waters" which both was pretty much perfect film experiences. The debut film "Schpaa" was also very promising.

The script here is written by Norwegian author and screenwriter Harald Rosenløw Eeg, after a story by Erik Popp which is largely inspired by personal experiences as a war photographer.

We meet the great war photographer Rebecca (Juliette Binoche), living in Ireland, when she's home, that is. Because her relationship with her family is faltering due to her dangerous work, and many days away from home. She follows suicide bombers in Kabul, and rampage killers in Africa. Her husband is a marine biologist (Nicolai Coaster-Waldau), and he is very tired of her not being there, even when she's home. This is also affecting their two daughters.

Make no mistake. This is a good film, but I felt it lacked some tempo. The slow thinking pace may be correct to get the feeling, but the film loses momentum, and could easily be a disappointment for those expecting another Poppe masterpiece. Because this isn't. Well, it's an interesting theme, but what could have been a great drama is slipping away. It's not the actor's fault, because they are doing a great job.

The film is artistically beautiful, and the opening is really something which makes you speculate. I must admit I was a bit disappointed, since I reckon Poppe as the best Norwegian director ever. But this wasn't wholly fulfilling to me.

This won the Special Grand Prize of the jury at the 37th Montréal Film Festival 2013.

In a warm sunny day in Montreal I went to watch the very new arrival film "A Thousand Times Good Night". I had no idea how it would be impressive because I could not find much information through the web.

All the people may encounter a paradoxical situation between their family and their job. This fact is more realizable when you are a war photographer. The first scenes of A Thousand Times Good Night are too devastating. You can feel the horror, anger, and self-sacrifice behavior in those Afghan extremists. It seems that the suicide bomber just jumped to her destiny as she had been told to do and in parallel she was scared to death. These paradoxical situations just began from the very first scene and moves through the film. The photographer, Rebecca, had her own dilemmas between her enthusiast and her family life. I think the symbolic scene which shows Rebecca plunging in reverse was frequently displayed to show how it would be difficult to decide in dilemmas. You may watch it or refuse to watch it but it worth to watch because this is life as it is!

War photographer Rebecca (Juliette Binoche) is one of the best at her job, obtaining the kind of pictures that invariably get published in western magazines as examples of the violence of conflicts in nonwestern areas such as Afghanistan or Kenya. The only snag is that Rebecca is so obsessed with her work that she cannot understand the damage she is doing to her family back in Ireland, especially her daughter Steph (Lauryn Canny).

The conflict between personal and professional values forms the kernel of Erik Poppe's film. Yet thematically speaking the director is far more interested in prompting reflection on the photographer's trade. While Rebecca certainly shows a good deal of bravery in trying to get the best pictures, we also understand that she is something of a voyeur who actively enjoys intruding into her subjects' personal space. Her fondness for the close-up of suffering people is quite disconcerting, especially in a sequence taking place in the back of an SUV in Afghanistan. In political terms, she adopts a neocolonialist position of the westerner taking scopophilic pleasure in the power she exerts through her camera.

Perhaps the film's most telling moment occurs back in Ireland, when Steph turns the camera on Rebecca and photographs her repeatedly. Rebecca cannot endure the experience of the lens pointing at her in such an intense manner and turns her head away, her eyes filling with tears. Would that Rebecca might understand that her subjects could feel much the same; but if she did so, then she would not be good at her job.

Given the integrity with which Poppe examines this issue, it's rather sad that the film as a whole should be somewhat melodramatic. In the end the action descends into something of a tug-of-love battle between mother and family; at one point Rebecca bundles Steph and her younger sister Lisa (Adrianna Cramer Curtis) in a pathetic attempt to abduct them from their family home. Needless to say husband Marcus (Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau) foils the plot and eventually looks after the girls himself.

The film makes a half-hearted attempt to draw a parallel between Rebecca's wanderlust and the rhythms of the tide (her daughter observes that the photographer is like the sea, coming and going), but unfortunately outstays its welcome: the last half-hour unfolds slowly but predictably towards an inevitable denouement. This is a shame, given the seriousness of its basic premise - almost as if director Poppe had lost the courage of his convictions.

Griping drama about a war photographer who is caught between choosing her family or her work. Which we learn is a lot more complicated than we initially thought. The cast did a believable portrayal of the difficulties that people encounter in life between their passion and family. What I liked especially about this film was that the lead was not portrayed as some war hero and her story was not romanticized. The story and characters all felt realistic and convincing since the characters were different shades of gray. Something that is amiss these days within film making. There is always a need to create a struggle between good and evil. Probably one of the better stories I have seen this year. Erik Poppe you did a great job with this one!

Juliette Binoche is one of the finest actresses of the past few decades. None of her beauty and vividness have faded with the advancing years. She brings to this role, as with all of her other roles a lot of heartfelt emotion. She plays a war photographer who is at war with herself about her family responsibilities versus her commitment to her dangerous occupation.

Nicolas Costas Waldau is brilliant as her husband. A much more appealing character than his Game of Thrones one. The young actresses who play her daughters are also wonderful.

One thing I will say is that it's frustrating to watch her put herself in immediate danger. Especially seeing as she has such an idyllic home life with such a beautiful husband, children and a nice cottage in rural Ireland. I won't spoil it for you. It is a wonderful movie, if a little frustrating.

A film about a female investigative journalist is bound to raise a reaction among viewers, especially when the atrocities filmed are so brutal. But that is the point being made by writer/director Erik Poppe (with added written material by Harald Rosenløw-Eeg and Kirsten Sheridan). The main character in this story is Rebecca (a radiant and brilliant Juliette Binoche), one of the world's top war photographers. She must weather a major emotional storm when her husband Marcus (Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau) refuses to put up with her dangerous life any longer. He and their young daughters – especially Steph (Lauryn Canny) but also the much younger Lisa (Adrianna Cramer Curtis) - need Rebecca, who, however, loves both her family and her work. Rebecca has been angry, since a child, over the way people around the globe focus on the detritus of local news and pay little attention to the horrors that occur daily in the countries besieged by terror. Rebecca resolves to take Steph (at Steph's request) to Kenya where inadvertently they witness terrorist acts even though Rebecca had been promised the area was safe. The result of Rebecca's endangering her daughter results in her marriage dissolving, but other changes in Rebecca's smoldering anger and angst result also.

The film is very well photographed and both Binoche and Coaster-Waldau are excellent. The supporting cast is strong (especially a very small bit part for Maria Doyle Kennedy) and the musical score by Armand Amar is deeply moving. The film places before us the incalculable struggles war correspondents face but at the same time it brings to out attention just how impossibly difficult life in troubled countries can be. Grady Harp December 14

I saw this at The Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis this weekend. It's been 24+ hours since the movie ended, and it's themes are still with me. The horror of war..the difficulty balancing passion and pragmatism...what do children need from their parents... My mind changed such that the final take away is the theme of the film. Life is difficult and decisions have consequences. I want to have coffee with Rebecca and shake her. Tell her how much her children and husband need her..Tell her the sacrifice isn't worth it. Atrocities will continue. Taking pictures of suicide bombers does glamorous the cause. Taking pictures of deceased Africans doesn't bring them to life. Why are you so angry? For these reasons, I must recommend this film. It is not only well acted, but it creates and stirs up emotions, makes you think. Some time more than entertainment is demanded from a film.

Frankly, I never knew what the movie is about. What I expected was a beautiful romantic drama and I got a movie that defined someone's struggle over her passion and its reality. After seeing opening scene I thought it would be another movie about war similar to the '5 Days of War'. I am glad it was so distinct which was partially based on the director own experiential story when he served as a photojournalist in the '80s. It is a jointly produced movie by Ireland and Norway in English language.

Rebecca is a passionate war zone photojournalist and her daring attitude make her one of the finest on the field. Like always her latest journey takes place in the war torn city of Kabul, Afghanistan. She follows a suicide bomber to cover up the story where she gets injured. After the accident the whole story flips back to her home in Ireland where it chronicles the worried husband and the two children who are very affectionate of her. This is the time where she has to choose the side, the professional? Or the family? The stay at home during recovery makes her realize the worth of her life. So the movie's end strikes with the path she opts to travel forth.

''Sometimes it's hard to stay at home. I mean, the one who stays at home has the hardest job.''

Well, it served a message with the touch of melodrama. The story demonstrated family value on the right amount of each others love and care. The opening and the end scenes that take place in Afghanistan was so brutal and there's another one that takes place in Kenya. But bringing the reality on the screen as it happening some places of the world must be appreciated. It kind of makes you realize that someone is sacrificing their life to bring light on what's happening in the war zones. Like always, Juliette Binoche was good. It was her movie, her side of the story told when she was caught between the family who loves and the war that calls her.

One of the fascinating thematic movie. Regarding the main role, you may think why she's not stopping the tragedy from happening. That's the journalism, when you have no power to act, just expose to the rest of the world. The combination of family drama and the conflict zone are like two different genres that brought together awesomely. The director's own experience helped to shape the movie well. Almost all the combat related scenes were so realistic as what he had seen is now letting us know through this film. I think this movie is a must see. The end scene makes us go speechless, woefully.

What I was hoping would be a thought-provoking trip into the psychology of the heart of bloody conflict instead becomes a pompous, boring, weighted thing of mediocrity. It's almost as if the director believes that the seriousness of the subject matter is enough to make the film compelling to audiences - which it isn't.

Unfortunately an important theme still requires pacing - which is not best accomplished by long silences and slow-mo ad-nauseum. The cardboard supporting cast display all the range of a TV commercial trying to inspire sympathy, and there's some atrocious child acting.

I know many people will feel compelled to like this because of the subject matter and the strong female lead, but beyond the façade of great cinematography and overly emotional music this is simply not well made.

Self-importance sinks this film.

1,000 Times Good Night (2013)

Wow, a powerful, amazing movie. It's about the ravages of photojournalism—the toll it takes on the photographer and her or his family. And I think it's rather real. I'm a photographer and professor of photography, and it felt pretty close to how it works— simplified a bit, but the feeling was accurate.

And Juliette Binoche is riveting. She makes the ups and downs, and the commitment to her profession, absolutely right on. Outsiders will find it hard to believe that a person can be so devoted to his or her career their children have to compromise (or worse), but that's just the normal truth of it. It's not a cushioned, safe world. And Binoche makes clear in her actions that she does it out of a real devotion to truth, and letting the world know. Admirable stuff.

Those are the big themes, and the movie fills it in with both personal angles (with the father of the children and the kids themselves) and the professional one (making decisions, doing her work). It also shows nicely the huge dichotomy between the world she works in and the one she lives in. This alone is worth seeing, because most of us will identify with the safety of an ordinary home, and the devastations she photographs are so opposite.

Yes, see this. It's imperfect in ways that are for film students to get into--what one reviewer sums up as the pompousness. But the overall is great stuff.

War photographer Rebecca (Juliette Binoche) is filming a female suicide bomber's preparations. The bombing goes wrong and she is severely hurt. Back home with her family, her husband Marcus (Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau) is struggling to hold it together. He demands that she stop endangering herself. She relents and goes on a safe job in Kenya with their daughter Steph (Lauryn Canny). When gunshots ring out, she can't resist.

This is a quiet poignant performance from Binoche. The wars have taken a toll on her and it shows in her eyes. She has this haunted look that is so effective in this movie. I wish the movie pushed the drama more because the story needs a more definitive climax. At one point, Rebecca takes her two daughters in her car. I really wish she had driven off with the girls. It's an opportunity to elevate the drama if she could break down at that point and then later return the kids home. It would make the final decision even more poignant.

War correspondents, what does their work lead to? Is it just conflict porn to the morning coffee or can what they do make us react? And act?

Juliette Binoche follows a suicide bomber in Kabul, from preparations to explosion. But is she somewhat responsible for what happens? She starts to think so. And she also has a family. Has she some responsibility for what's happening to them?

That's the weak part of this film. Not that the script is bad, but the family conflict is a little too expected, from its up to its down. The most important question remains. What international media means to the world.

Slow-moving, introspective tale about an experienced war-time photographer returning home after an assignment gone wrong. While convalescing she must deal with her husband's increasing intolerance, her oldest daughter's silent protests, her youngest's anxiety, and her own ambivalence towards her occupation. Although A Thousand Times Good Night is constantly relevant and ostensibly probing, the family issues that are dealt with here are so familiar to moviegoers and so conventionally handled that they turn the film into an hour's worth of melodrama, book-ended by some potentially very interesting war-time segments that aren't given enough time or context to warrant the sensationalism that Poppe implements in them. To cut it short, the film is somewhat ill-focused. What does shine through and partly works, however, is Poppe's tribute to war correspondents, and their importance. But due to the lack of context, even the in-action sequences feel somewhat staged. Poppe tries to contrast his female photographer's work with her domestic problems - which are comparatively trivial both in essence and in their presentation - but although the appreciation of them may be important to and defining for the teenage daughter, they remain rather obvious and unnecessary elaborate to us.

I came into the movies with an open mind, without any knowledge of either the plot, setting or premise of the movie. The opening left me mesmerized, starting off with a silent photographer documenting a ceremonial initiation of a suicide bomber, to later become hurt in the subsequent IED attack. The following complications and insight to the photographer's life really builds up a powerful and emotional drama that mostly plays out within the borders of her own home.

From the reaction of her husband to their children's acceptance of their mother's dangerous occupation, every scene feels truly genuine. In addition to being a perfectly acted and directed movie, the cinematography is, to say the least, absolutely astonishing and beautiful. From start to end, the movie feels like a beautiful painting, with no expense spared on the details.

The most refreshing feature of this particular movie is the way the story is delivered, in a non-predictable fashion freed from the basic "Hollywood-recipe". To say the least, this is by far one of the best European movie released in years, and I am yet to see a movie this original, captivating, refreshing and complex from Hollywood. 10/10 stars, absolutely a must-see for all movie enthusiasts that appreciate something else than recycled, brain-dead black and white portraits of reality that Hollywood keeps producing.

The opening scenes of his movie had me on the edge of my seat, it was a really powerful image and I thought if the movie continues like this I'm in for a hell of a ride.

The first scene is misleading.

That however did not make a bad movie, just a different one then I thought I was watching. While labelled as a war movie (well at least on IMDb anyway) this is far from one, but more instead a look at just how the life of these type of photographers can take on the life of their families. I real thought provoking watch.

The scene inside the car in front of the school is the best part of this movie

The only really positive thing I can say about Erik Poppe's English language debut, is that the photography is quite beautiful. The script and acting however, is at a level where even the most intense and action filled scenes are completely unengaging and boring.

What really ruins the experience though, is the way the movie continuously cranks the melodrama to 11, and constantly demand an emotional watershed. It's like every scene is screaming: LOOK AT THIS PERFECT FAMILY AND THEIR CUTE KITTEN, DOESN'T IT MAKE YOU CRY OF HAPPINESS!!! LOOK AT THIS POOR WAR TORN COUNTRY, DOESN'T IT JUST TEAR YOU UP INSIDE!!! Instead of provoking a sympathetic response, it is so over the top that it's reminiscent of bad poetry from an angst ridden teenager.

The blame can only lie with an overambitious director. All the locations in different countries and multiple plot lines, end up getting lost in their own entanglement, and makes it a pale comparison to his brilliant Norwegian classic, Hawaii Oslo.

This represents the first great movie I've seen in awhile. We think it's the old Hollywood story about families sticking together. Instead a mother tries to honor her teenage daughter's idealism about the world - an idealism that's desperately needed but nearly impossible to achieve. This mixed in with a home front situation and seems to be beyond ideal. The acting is frequently subtle, sometimes powerful, but they certainly cast the right amount of people (i.e. not too many) to solidify a strong message. I was impressed at how directly the dialogue took on world politics and non-profit organizations. Beautiful camera work - the theme - and a surprise ending make this a must-see.

I can not stress how much I love this film. There are so many beautiful moments, and so many beautiful shots. This film really went straight into my heart, and I felt every moment of it. Artistically it's shot very well, and I got nothing negative to say about the mise-en-scene. I believe it's a very important story to tell, and when I found out it was based on the directors life, I was even more impressed. Lauryn Canny was only 14 years old when the film were shot, and to get such a great performance from someone that young is admirable. It will go under my all time favourite films. Nicolaj is a great actor and it's nice to see him in a role like this, and as usual, Juliette's performance is strong, and you believe every tear that falls from her eyes. She is such a talented actress, and she was perfect for the role!