Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Wordiezett So much average

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

jotix100 One realizes not everything is all right between Lena and Michel. They are seen momentarily in deep discussion, but their two daughters do not get a whiff of what is really happening. The girls, Frederique and Sophie, are wiser than their tender years indicate. Lena packs the girl for their summer at a rented house at the seaside resort of La Baule in the Loire-Atlantique department, where Lena and her married sister, Bella, and their families spend the summer.It was the late 1950s in France, a time marked by the conflict in Algeria. The children, accompanied by Odette, come to the house near the ocean where they will intermingle with their cousins. It is also at the resort where Frederique and Sophie will get the news about their parent's irrevocable divorce. Lena cannot stay with Mihel any longer. In fact, she shows a bit of carelessness as her lover from Lyon, Jean-Claude, a sculptor, joins her on his way to America, something he would like her to do.The summer days are spent on the beach, where with the girls irritating their caretaker, Odette, get in trouble when their pranks get out of hand. Lena is determined to settle with the girls in Paris, but she badly needs money that without Michel's help will be almost impossible. Her brother-in-law promises help, but it might not be adequate for the needs. Michel wants to go back, but one realizes they have nothing left of what they once felt.A loving tribute by Diane Kurys, a director who has examined her life in different portraits she has created for the screen. Her stories take an intimate view of family life, or the lack of it, as in this case. The film is seen from Frederique's point of view, basically. All that is going on with her mother is examined by the young girl, still too young to really be able to digest the vibes she witnesses around her parents. It is also Frederique's awakening to young love, because she is attracted to her older cousin, something that is tole in subtle ways by Ms. Kurys. The director, who wrote her own screenplay in collaboration with Alain Le Henry, examines her past with an openness that is refreshing. She handles her cast well and was rewarded with an excellent Natalie Baye as Lena. The other surprise in the film is Julie Bataille, who makes an impression as Frederique. The supporting players are wonderful in their contribution to the viewer's enjoyment of the film. Richard Berry, Vincent Lindon, Jean-Pierre Bacri, Zabou, a young Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and the young children seen as the cousins.Philippe Sarde contributed with the score which plays in the background, mingled with pop songs of that era. The cinematography is credited to Fabio Conversi and Giuseppe Lanci, which captures the flavor of a typical summer French resort by the sea.

Chris Knipp The is a very typically French slice of late Fifties middle-class life as seen during summer at the seaside when the parents' marriage is breaking up. The looks, the behavior, the attitudes could only be French. In that sense the film has a certain fascination and, hopefully, period accuracy (it's set in 1958).The subtext is that for a young teenage girl in a sociable world, with a sister and brothers and a pleasant uncle and aunt and an annoying nanny and a young boy interested in kissing her and a close relationship with the imaginary addressee of her daily diary, her parents' disintegrating marriage is by no means the only thing going on in her world--especially given the fact that she's at a summer resort in a rented house and the mother is often away and the father is almost always away. There is a lot going on, most notably the changes in herself. This is probably the film's and Kurys' real subject--only it's a difficult one to put across and she doesn't quite succeed. Ultimtely too much is nonetheless going on, and it is all given too similar weight. Kurys, perhaps in her effort to balance autobiography with history and sociology, winds up making neither the adult nor the children's point of view strong enough. Lindon, Bruni-Tedeschi, Bacri, Berry, and Baye have been in better films. However, they're interesting actors, and the child actors are equally fine. This is not as bad or as great as some have suggested. It's very watchable, but it doesn't really go anywhere.Not a disaster, and a sincere effort, but not successful storytelling and not finally a very memorable experience.

MartinHafer At first, I thought this was a sequel to Entre Nous. Many of the same people who made one film made another, they are supposedly written by and about the same people and the character names are repeated. However, those playing the roles are NOT the same (although Jean-Pierre Bacri stars in BOTH films but plays totally different roles). Because of this, some viewers might be VERY disappointed. It reminded me of the movie A Christmas Story. There was a little-known sequel named Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss that had NONE of the original characters or charm--and because of this it was soon forgotten. Now the only difference I see is that both these French films are about equally good. Apart from the many differences mentioned above, this film doesn't seem to have a negative view of men (in Entre Nous, the male leads were all Neanderthals), but portrays the mother in the story as a self-absorbed woman whose kids seemed to be an afterthought--her new boy-toy was about 90% of her focus. Because of this, individuals who watch this film AND have issues with a neglecting mother should think twice before watching--you MAY find this film kicks up a lot of feelings.

writers_reign This was the fifth of the nine films Diane Kurys has so far directed and the third of three (Diabolo Menthe, Coup de Foudre being the others) that deal with her own experiences in childhood and adolescence. In the second film, Coup de Foudre, the character based on Kury's own mother and fictionalised as Lena was played by Isabelle Huppert whilst here Nathalie Baye assumes the role opposite Richard Berry as husband/father Michel. The action has moved on from the war and post-war years in Lyon (Kury's own home town) to the late 1950s when thirteen year old Frederique (Julie Bataille), the closest character to the young Kurys herself and her eight year old sister Sophie are taken by their Nanny Odette (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) to the seaside for the summer vacation. A pre-credit sequence reveals to us the gulf (explored first in Coup de Foudre) that now exists between the parents and which the sisters are perhaps subconsciously aware. At the last minute - literally at the railway station itself - they realize that Lena will not accompany them. Once established at the resort they take out their frustration on Odette as a ploy to force their mother to join them but when she does so she spends more time with a lover Claude (Vincent Lindon) than with them. Also on hand are Leon (Jean-Pierre Bacri and the highly fertile Bella (Zabou) and when Michel shows up he deliberately destroys the car that symbolised Lena's independence and engages in a verbal and physical quarrel with Lena that is so intense that Frederique threatens to kill herself with a shard of glass broken during their fighting. This is an outstanding film in which the pain of adolescence is once-removed through the filter of nostalgia and replete with the tiny 'touches' - popular songs of the day, etc - that we use as signposts to lead us back into the past. Fifteen years on it's fascinating to see the younger versions of six exceptional French actors two of whom (Zabou with Se Souvenirs des belles chooses, and Bruni-Tedeschi with Il est plus facile pour un chameau ...) would go on to direct outstanding films themselves. I can't recommend this one highly enough.