Oliver Stone fans beware: This movie doesn't knock you over the head. Everything is understated, from the screenplay, to the way the movie is shot, to the understated performances. Best is the Oscar-winning (that's a prediction!) Kirsten Scott-Thomas. Her nuanced and deep performance says so much more about her character than any other mode of presentation.
It's interesting that KST has done better with her French roles than her English-speaking ones. Perhaps it's the nature of her material. Perhaps it's that as a second language, French allows her face and body to do much of the acting. The subtle changes in her character from beginning to end is as nuanced as the movie, but discernible and clear, made more believable by the way KST takes us there.
As for the closing denouement, without spoiling: Does it really matter why she was gone, what she did, or why she did it? This film rightly focused us on her as a person with a past, rather than what the past was.
Il y'a longtemps que j'ai vu un film francais si bon!
It's interesting that KST has done better with her French roles than her English-speaking ones. Perhaps it's the nature of her material. Perhaps it's that as a second language, French allows her face and body to do much of the acting. The subtle changes in her character from beginning to end is as nuanced as the movie, but discernible and clear, made more believable by the way KST takes us there.
As for the closing denouement, without spoiling: Does it really matter why she was gone, what she did, or why she did it? This film rightly focused us on her as a person with a past, rather than what the past was.
Il y'a longtemps que j'ai vu un film francais si bon!