I've Loved You So Long, 2008 (Grade C)

Director: Philippe Claudel
Awards:  2009 BAFTA Vest Foreign Language Film + other nominations
Starring:  Kristin Scott Thomas; Elsa Zylberstein; Serge Hazanavicius; Laurent Grevill; Frederic Pirrotl Clair Johnson; Catherine Hosmalin; Oliver Cruveiller; Lise Segur; Mouss Zouheyri


sez says-- what a disappointment -- this was such a very good movie all the way up to the end.  Then, in order for Kristin Scott Thomas' character to turn out to be a good person, the story falters with its explanation of WHY she did it.  The explanation was bunk.   It would have been impossible for no one to have known about the situation that she describes: or put another way "the explanation" was not possible based on what we had been told in the rest of the story. The problems of an ex-felon re-entering the mainstream are real.  That many suffer on their own- separate from the suffering brought on by imprisonment -- is also real enough.  This story needed to stay true to those realities--rather than ruin itself with a fairytale ending. (Grade C because it took on a neglected topic..but no higher because it was wrecked by the ending.)