Marty In short: This is a very arrogant and unsuccessful attempt to be another Jean-Luc Godard, Ingmar Bergman, or Hector Babenco.This movie was terrible. And, I do not dislike this movie solely because of the rampant anti-Americanism.I also dislike this movie on its movie qualities.Let's start with acting. Tom Riley as "David" was so completely ridiculous in his role. Here is a young man who goes to Paris to meet his father, is confronted by two people he doesn't know, has two guns drawn at him ready to fire, is subsequently told his father had a secret family in France and Sara Forestier ("Orlando") is his half-sister he never knew about. He sees a dead body, dripping of fresh blood, of the concierge while exiting the Paris hotel, and is now in fear for his life. Or he should be. How many 25-30 year olds (I'm guessing that's the character's age bracket) have seen a murdered body, especially in his demographics as a middle class white male? I mean how many of us have seen a murdered body ever? Or have had loaded guns in our faces? Or told about their dear father's second secret family that you never knew about? And this all happened within hours.But how does Riley's "David" react? Like he stepped out of a shampoo-commercial - he's cooking fine cuisines, making jokes about cell phones and wanting to visit the Eiffel Tower? Either Amigorena thinks American characters cannot practice deep retrospection and emotion or Riley is really one of the most horrible movie actor's I've seen in a while.The Direction . . . So self-indulgent. So "look at me". So "I can be so deep". It really was pathetic. The most pathetic, self-indulgent scene was one of the last where Juliette Binoche and John Turturro or "Irene Montan" and "William Pound" have the last gun-fight. In slow-motion with the sound turned off, the camera pans outside where we only see blasts of light every second and a half. Give me a break. That was such a ridiculous scene that the other people in the theater were laughing out loud.The Writing . . . Is this a caper film? Is this a spy film? Or is this - a French romance? The brother and sister (well sort of) begin a romantic interlude because deep films have love scenes -- right? This guy is so deeped out, man. Such a ridiculous attempt to be better than anything ever filmed. Such arrogance in his film-making.There was one part of the film which had humor and kind of worked. After Turturro ("Pound") would kill someone or come close he'd immediately get his psychiatrist on the phone. That was a little funny, and possibly more should have been done with this area.

David Eastman Despite a very good cast and a clever idea, this film never happened. The acting was good but the director was self-indulgent with his filming technique.The film was slow and built no tension, and by time Nick Nolte arrived, the film had already died on its backside. The film wasted time on juvenile political discussion. I literally thought that the American boy would accuse the French girl as being a cheese eating surrender monkey, but of course they just fall in love! Every single role was unoriginal from John Turtoro's poetry reading psycho to Juliet Binoche's cool french spy. Given such an important political possibility, the film said absolutely nothing.

monsieurubu If you are waiting for action and violence, don't go and see this film. The spy plot, in this movie, is only a pretext to show us the meeting of three strangers who learn to know and understand each other while they are waiting the final coming of Elliot, under the threat of William Pound, a hilarious psychotic killer played by John Turturro. What is interesting is to see how, gradually, characters begin to talk really, and to build a real link between them. In some way "Quelques jours en septembre" may remind us of "Sonatine", by Takeshi Kitano ; the whole film is indeed totally based on a very long expectation ; an expectation that the audience is obliged to share with the characters : during the 40 first minutes we don't know where Santiago Amigorena is leading us, we are totally lost - but if we have the patience to wait, we enter the action and get really rewarded for our efforts. To conclude, I must mention Tom Riley and Juliette Binoche's remarkable performance, a very original aesthetic "parti pris", and a very pleasant bittersweet humor (I think for example of John Turturro's dialogs with his psychiatrist).

lefrelonvert Other than good performances from Juliette Binoche, Sara Forestier and the likable newcomer Tom Riley, this movie doesn't have much to recommend it. Aiming to be a "metaphoric" spy movie about the evils of secrecy and the wounds of childhood, the film fails for having plot devices instead of characters and a sloppy, unconvincing direction, resulting in an overall bore. We are also treated with highly annoying anti-American propaganda. Nick Nolte pops up in the last ten minutes like a poor man's Colonel Kurtz but his appearance comes too late to wake up the movie. For works playing successfully playing with the thriller genre, try some of Paul Austers'books or Wim Wenders'earlier films instead. Skip this one.