I've Loved You So Long - 30 May 2010

Principal cast: Kristin Scott Thomas, Elsa Zylberstein, Laurent Grévill, Serge Hazanavicius, Frederic Pierrot

Film notes: A woman is released from prison after serving a long sentence for the murder of her 6-year-old son. Her younger sister welcomes her to her comfortable, loving home, with the best of intentions and a simple faith in family love. But her husband is troubled from the start: there are two young children in the home, and nobody knows what led to the murder of the boy 15 years before. First-time director, Philippe Claudel, has cast the masterful Kristin Scott Thomas as the stricken filicide, Juliette. Juliette's inscrutible blankness permits those close to her (and the audience) to harbour the worst forebodings and to strain hopefully for love to bring her back to the human fold. In an orchestration of quietly unnerving details, the film creates the suspense of a horror film. Yet it is simultaneously a psychologically delicate exploration of whether everyday love, and the chatter of family life, have the power to redeem the unspeakable. Everyone has questions, and Juliette is not the only person unable to speak or required to be silent. I've Loved You So Long (Il y a longtemps que je t'aime), in its very title, raises a somehow troubling question: who is addressing her love to whom and will the beloved be able to accept this love?

Claudel uses Scott Thomas to extraordinary effect in this suspense-laden film. Even the ambivalence of whether she is a star or a self-effacing art-house actress is in play: the relentless question of whether Juliette will be redeemed or not amounts to asking whether this film will allow the celebrated Scott Thomas smile to emerge from the ashen mask of Juliette.