I've Loved You So Long.

"Once settled into the [I've Loved You So Long's] tone, I swung three-for-three on my plot twist predictions," writes Nick Pinkerton at indieWIRE. "You shouldn't be able to do this at a movie you didn't write yourself." Agreed. Even so, I've been mildly startled to come across a couple of reviews in which those twists are evidently assumed to be so predictable that there's no reason to avoid spoiling them. I've snipped around those passages, but, for what it's worth, consider yourself warned.

"The 'tradition of quality,' EU edition," continues Nick Pinkerton: "a 'literary' plot kept on a tight leash, flashes of cultural credentials, congratulatory humanism, and anesthesiac inserts of people looking grim on public transit. Still, [Kristin] Scott Thomas's translucent portrait of a lady is good enough to make you believe she's rummaging through mislaid feelings in real time - seeing her dazed and ruffled after her afternoon fling with a cafe drageur, I half believed I was watching a Masterpiece."

Updated through 10/29.

"I've Loved You So Long is a modestly satisfying tale of sisterly love weighed down by a history of family betrayal and mendacity," finds Ella Taylor in the Voice. Novelist, teacher and first-time director Philippe Claudel "seems bent on making I've Loved You So Long as softly inoffensive as the beloved French lullaby from which it takes its title."

"For a first film, Mr Claudel's I've Loved You So Long is an unusually mature piece of work with none of the usual indulgences of the novice director," writes Andrew Sarris in the New York Observer. "He has made a grown-up film for our troubled time, and created a beautiful rapport between two gifted actresses."

Laura Winters profiles Claudel for the New York Times.

Michelle Orange talks with Scott Thomas for IFC.

Online viewing tip. FilmCatcher interviews Claudel.

Updates, 10/24: "The film, in the end, turns away from the Dostoyevskian implications of Juliette's crime and its expiation," writes AO Scott in the New York Times. "A revelation comes near the end that is both tremendously moving and a bit disappointing, in the way that the solutions to great mysteries frequently are. This turn does not diminish the accomplishment of Ms Scott Thomas's deep, subtle and altogether stunning performance, but it does alter the scale of the movie, turning it into a more manageable, less existentially unsettling drama. Which is a relief, I suppose, but also a bit of a letdown."

"Much like the recent Rachel Getting Married, Claudel's film grapples perceptively with the depth of family ties, which have the power to withstand obstacles that would—and perhaps should—tear any other relationship asunder," writes Scott Tobias at the AV Club.

"[I]t is Scott Thomas's work on which the success of the picture depends and she does not fail it," writes Richard Schickel in Time. "Indeed, she gives a truly great performance. It's never easy for an actor to sustain our sympathy when a role is grounded in radical passivity."

"Her role nearly screams 'awards bait,' but Scott Thomas is a deft enough performer not to outact [Elsa] Zylberstein," notes Melissa Anderson in Time Out New York.

"I was a fan back in her luminous romantic lead days, with mid-90s films like Four Weddings and a Funeral and The English Patient, but here the 48-year-old actress goes deeper than she has ever before, letting her cheeks sag, her bright eyes fade and her lips pout," writes Aaron Cutler in Slant. "I've Loved You So Long will be overrated, but because of Thomas it's a gift nonetheless."

"I've Loved You So Long is the kind of film America's moviemakers have all but given up on," writes Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. "An example of the French tradition of high-quality adult melodrama, conventional in technique but not story, this thoughtful, provocative film is slow developing because it's all about character, about the tricky, fragile relationships that make us human; about, if you really want to get down to it, the reclamation of a soul."

Brent Simon talks with Scott Thomas for Vulture.

Erica Abeel talks with Claudel for indieWIRE.

Update, 10/27: David Edelstein in New York: "The film is a tease, with a cheat of a final disclosure, but Philippe Claudel's direction is both probing and delicate, and Scott Thomas's face, even immobile, keeps you watching, searching for hints of her character's past, unable to blink for fear of missing something vital."

Update, 10/29: Peter Sobczynski talks with Claudel for Hollywood Bitchslap.

Posted by dwhudson at October 23, 2008 11:50 AM