axapvov
As Claude Chabrol said, "Isabelle Huppert makes her own films, the director and everybody else are just there to help". This one is perfectly suited for her restrained style. A woman´s life is changing considerably and she carries on. Simple enough but oh there´s so much more to it. This realistic story-telling makes a short scene of her tearing up in the car more effective than a full house melodrama. A serious, intelligent film with poignant reflections on maturity, idealism and more. The realism holds its logic all the way until the ending.For someone used to french cinema it isn´t that outstanding but it´s such a serious piece of film-making it stands out among the rest. In my opinion the last section could have been trimmed and I have a couple of petty complaints but overall it´s still a compelling film. A pleasant drama that should easily satisfy anyone who knows what they´re getting into.
pottypat
Gave it 2 because of good photography and location shots. I watched in the sincere and desperate hope of superior GILF Isabelle Huppert getting smutty, cos you know, it's a French film innit? And they always get their kit off don't they? Instead I got a pretentious French philosophical waffle-a-thon that left me in a Nihilistic post Dioginistic trance with Platonic overtones. Watching paint dry would rival this for entertainment value. It appears to be a vanity piece for the director/writer to demonstrate they studied philosophy.
Andres-Camara
This is a typical French film. One of those films that go flat and more flat that only serve to lengthen the film why you can not or want to make an ellipsis, although what you have to count is already counted. It's too long. I think he wants to tell a number of things but he does not really count anything or everything goes so far as to say nothing. I'll tell you something in the spoiler zone.The actors are very natural, the problem is that I do not know what role they have in the film half of them.Photography is as always in this type of non-existent films. Looks like they used a video camera.The direction, nonexistent for several reasons, if the director does not know that there are so many planes that delay the film, bad. The plans are as if we see a play, general in the foreground, but this is cinema, we must use audiovisual language.I imagine that it will be me, that less and less of cinema.Spoiler:Try to tell us how a couple disarms, but if it was not because they told me they are a couple, I would not have seen it because they could be friends who live together and more if they are people as you design, cultured, intelligent, nice . I should show you before that you are a couple and then see how you disarm. But in reality I only see that it breaks and nothing happens.
Tom Dooley
Isabelle Huppert plays Nathalie a woman reaching middle age with a long time marriage and two grown up children. She teaches philosophy at a high school in Paris and life is good. She also enjoys her former students who seem to nurture her in return for the nurturing she gave them.Then her husband announces he is having an affair and is leaving her. With the certitude of familiarity now removed and new possibilities blossoming she has to decide if this is a tragedy or a new beginning and what to make of her life.Now this is just compelling from start to finish all the performances are brilliant. This is one of those films where you feel you are being a voyeur in many respects – it is that well done. The sub stories too are done with such care that they segue seamlessly into the main narrative – rather like the way things do in real life. Huppert is superb (as she always is) Roman Kolinka as Fabien is rather good to and worthy of a mention as he is sort of ambiguous but in a way so contrived that you question whether he actually is. Anyway, in French a bit of German and the ever present English this is an understated gem that will bring much reward to any who should seek it out – recommended.
AD
