paul on spout.com

I’ve Loved You So Long came into Telluride with a lot of buzz about this being Kristen Scott Thomas‘ soon-to-be Oscar winning performance. Like Forrest Whittaker in The Last King of Scotland two years ago, it was the performance not to miss. So, I didn’t. And if Kristen Scott Thomas wins an Oscar it’s because there are very few actresses who can hold an audience for two hours alternating between chain smoking with a million-mile-stare and delivering long, expository monologues about her backstory. I mean that as a compliment to Ms. Thomas and a criticism to director, Philippe Claudel.

Juliette (Kristen Scott Thomas) sits in an airport in France smoking. Her face is a map of heartache. In fact, it looks more dead than alive, which is probably the most impressive moment of the movie. (Why do directors insist that great actors talk so much?) Her sister, Léa (Elsa Zylberstein) arrives late. The ride to her sister’s country home is icy. They haven’t seen each other in a long time and they want to discuss anything but why. That’s how I’ve Loved You So Long begins.

Quickly, we learn Juliette has been in prison fifteen years for murder. But obviously she’s not considered dangerous because her sister brought her home to live with her husband, two adopted daughters and mute father-in-law. Juliette and Léa reluctantly embark on trying to be sisters again. Meanwhile, Juliette looks for a job, smokes, visits her parole officer (Frédéric Pierrot, the most compelling character with the least screen time) and slowly defrosts around her sister’s family and friends. When somebody tries to talk to her, she snaps at them, but when she chooses to talk to somebody, there’s a huge backlog of stories about herself she needs to share. Its kind of a rhythm: Smoking, snapping, talking. Smoking, snapping, talking.

It doesn’t take too much time for the audience to discern the nature of the murder she served time for, but for some reason the director orchestrates a big reveal at the climax of the movie, which is anything but. Juliette’s a classic tragedian whose slowly stepping toward a grand catharsis, a moment that begs us to be stunned by what we’ve known all along.

At Berlin, I’ve Loved You So Long won the Ecumenical Prize for best picture promoting unity or something. I guess it won because we feel compassion for a prisoner walking the streets after serving time for a crime of compassion. But isn’t that kind of a non-criminal? It’d be like making a movie about learning to forgive Harriet Tubman for all the lies she told. I think if the award validates anything, it’s that people love to have great actors repeat their beliefs back to them.

Now Revanche on the other hand. Phew-ee. That movie had a slimeball ex-con who was so magnetic I wanted to hire him as a nanny. Figure out how the director promoted that kind of unity because I can’t.