This film really irritated me. The main problem is the central premise - that a woman would meekly and mutely spend 15 years in prison for a mercy crime with no questions ever asked. Once this becomes apparent I think it's difficult to retain patience with what is little more than a far-fetched conceit. Far too often we read of real life cases of children dying at the hands of their parents. But along with the emotional trauma comes a huge legal and media machine. This is neatly ignored in this film preferring to linger on the fragrant and wistful middle-class sadness of Scott-Thomas staring into space, suffering in noble but picturesque silence.
I know what losing a child does to someone. It has happened to someone close to me and it destroyed their lives. This film doesn't seem to honestly explore that at all. It approaches the sort of sentimentality you find in American films where pain and suffering are used to titillate an audience before being told at the end that everything will be alright after all (especially if you are middle class and attractive).
I know what losing a child does to someone. It has happened to someone close to me and it destroyed their lives. This film doesn't seem to honestly explore that at all. It approaches the sort of sentimentality you find in American films where pain and suffering are used to titillate an audience before being told at the end that everything will be alright after all (especially if you are middle class and attractive).