Trois jours et une vie

This is a very good thriller, immersive from the first minute, but also with a heart. And especially with an amazing twist in the end, that almost brought tears in my eyes and that may hit home for anyone. With a single word, it rewrites the story, the film, it even shifts the role of main character to another one. I was also pleased to see Sandrine Bonnaire and Charles Berling again, but young Pablo Pauly was the main attraction. Please note I love good American thrillers and don't like European dramas too much, so don't be deterred from seeing this Belgian film just because it's European; it is is a lesson of writing, shooting and acting.

If you are looking for something different that the regular Netflix stuff, you will be drawn into a incredible story. I did not read the book so I did not have any expectation. The acting is spot on, beautiful shooting of Belgium countryside and deep storyline that turns unexpected. I love it !

It is a little slow, have to say, but it's good. I don't understand the relationship between Antoine and his mother. She was so cold and they never talked about things that had happened to him. Every single caring mom would ask her son what is going on. Even when she found out that he witnessed the dog being shot, she didn't ask her son about it. Weird. Years later, he came back to the village and due to the circumstances he decided to stay there. His mother never asked about his sudden change of plans. Then, her partner revealed that he had known the whole truth, and probably, she had too, but she never spoke to her son about it. These are the things I didn't like, everything else was well made.

An engaging movie about the ironies of life, especially the life of one Antoine who lives in a northern French village. Antoine is the character whose life of predicaments holds this story together, and he is well-played by two actors, Jeremy Senez as the younger version and Pablo Pauly as the grown-up one. We feel for Antoine and want to be on his side, and the actors manage to make him sympathetic. The scenes that took place during the historic winter storm of 1999 were brilliantly shot.

All the elements are there, the plot, the acting, the set, the atmosphere... But the pace is uneven, it lags at times and then suddenly, many years pass or important things happen in a second and, mostly, out of the view.

The time passes and I keep waiting for the mistery to unravel or the conflict to arise, but they never do, and since all the cards are laid on the table from the get go, there's no big reveal or twist at the end to reward the audience's patience .

It has some silly, but distracting, errors, such as people looking exactly the same way they looked fifteen years ago, or the supermarket cashier and the police officer that look the same as they did a decade ago, and are expecting their first child, like it had been 3 years since the events, not 15!

Furthermore, almost everyone made some quite questionable decisions, that are never fully explained.

Love French cinema, especially the noir thrillers, so I thought this movie would be right up my alley, but I was dissapointed.