Il y a longtemps que je t'aime

This movie succeeds in presenting believable characters through life-like dialogs and superior acting. Despite its heavy emotional load, it never degrades into a tear-jerker. Perhaps it makes a difference whether you are a parent yourself as a viewer, I could not tell, but after returning home, I did feel like giving the kids a loving cuddle. This movie will linger for a while in my mind. It seems to me that Philippe Claudel is not just a very observing novelist, but also a good director, capable of a lot of empathy with the human condition. Anyone looking for light entertainment should stay out of the movie theater where this movie is playing, but if you are interested in a subtle emphatic presentation of characters, you should not miss this.

Claudel provides a lesson for American film makers and a lasting pleasure for the audience. The cast is evenly excellent with Kristin Scott Thomas and Elsa Zylberstein the personifications of things felt and not said to siblings. It is such a pleasure to watch actors and actresses who look like people instead of an eight by ten glossy of themselves. Serge Hazanaviciius, Laurent Grevil, Frederic Pierrot, Jean-Claude Amaud and little Lise Se'gur form a perfect framework for the two stars. With no special effects and little background music, the viewer can concentrate on the slow peeling of layer after layer of revelation. The beauty revealed at its core is the result of action, not an attempt to tie up loose ends nor a deus ex machina. Snar

Last night I watched this brilliant movie for the third time. I can't actually get enough of Ms. Kristin Scott Thomas' performance in this movie. She performs as a rich and complex character in this film. Cinema fans know her from her outstanding performance in "The English Patient (1996)" for which she was nominated as the best leading actress in Academy Awards. 12 years after that performance, in 2008, she beautifully played the role of a woman, better to say a human, who came out of the jail and struggled to be accepted in the society as well as in her own family. It's not just that, the movie has some sense of mystery and little by little the story behind Juliette's, Kristin Scott Thomas', actions and behaviours unfolds itself. She has her own weaknesses, strengths, fears and sorrows. Artfully, Philippe Claudel, the director shows every little details of her changing moods and emotions. I highly recommend this movie for anyone who loves to see a good French movie with some magnificent acting.

Just had the pleasure of seeing this movie in a cinema and I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

The movie touches several very sensitive subjects in a careful and a non-judging way; it left me thinking deeply about the rules of our society, and what happens if one falls through the raster; if what one has done does not fit into the view of the majority and one's actions are not compatible with the rules that society has given itself.

There are scenes that made me laugh, others leaving me absorbed in thought, all the while realising: this is life as it is, sometimes wonderful, sometimes brutal and sad.

The acting is brilliant in my view, the film lives from Kristin Scott Thomas and Elsa Zylberstein, both seem to be made for the characters they play while the rest of the cast, even for the smallest part, seems to have been carefully picked as well. Both actors and director describe the making of the movie as a very interesting experience, something I don't doubt at all after seeing it.

If you get a chance to see the movie, do it. It's worth it.

This may be the film that makes Kristin Scott Thomas's reputation as not a good actress but a great one. It is a French film, and one has to accept the parameters of French 'intimisme'; as such it is wonderful. It is not a question of being a parent or not: it's a question of being ready or not to be swept out of one's daily self by great acting. Elsa Zylberstein is a fine actress (I remember her with affection in 'Farinelli'), but Scott Thomas here surpasses anything she has done before. She is capable, we knew, of making herself nearly ugly ('Angels and Insects'); she can do understated sensitivity ('Four Weddings and a Funeral'); here she gets a part of the emotional power of a Medea or a Phaedra and plays it with the let-it-rip force of a great tragédienne. The film is a vehicle for an actress, and none the worse for that. It is not unworthy of her, and that may be the best one can say of Claudel's work; but that may just be enough. There was a curiously fugitive quality to KST's interviews about this film: one got the impression she didn't really want to talk about it in more than mundane depth. One can see why. It all goes very near the bone. She may want to do a sheer glorious comedy next, just to remind us all of the blithe side of her nature. Long may she live, and work.