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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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Slumdog Millionaire
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Trouble the Water
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U2 3D
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Wrestler, The
82
Tell No One
82
Rachel Getting Married
82
Let the Right One In
80
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
80
Wendy and Lucy
79
Frost/Nixon
78
I've Loved You So Long
78
Gran Torino
78
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
76
Betrayal - Nerakhoon, The
75
Pool, The
73
Girl Cut in Two, A
72
I Served the King of England
70
Black Balloon, The
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Hunger
70
What Doesn't Kill You
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69
Doubt
69
Ashes of Time Redux
69
Fear(s) of the Dark
68
August Evening
67
Synecdoche, New York
64
JCVD
64
Timecrimes
64
Appaloosa
63
Where God Left His Shoes
63
Changeling
63
Eden
62
Duchess, The
61
Che
59
We Are Wizards
58
Adam Resurrected
57
Special
57
Reader, The
56
Religulous
55
Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
55
What Just Happened?
54
Battle in Seattle
54
Good Dick
53
RocknRolla
51
Breakfast with Scot
49
How About You
46
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43
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40
While She Was Out
40
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40
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38
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35
My Name Is Bruce
34
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32
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32
Let Them Chirp Awhile
31
Hounddog
30
Guitar, The
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28
Nobel Son
28
Fireproof
26
House of the Sleeping Beauties
26
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Class, The
xx
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xx
Dostana
xx
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xx
Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi
xx
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xx
Extreme Movie
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
I've Loved You So Long
Sony Pictures Classics
 |
|
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for thematic material and smoking
Starring
Kristin Scott Thomas,
Laurent Grévill,
Elsa Zylberstein,
and
Frédéric Pierrot
Lea and Juliette are sisters who are almost complete strangers. Juliette has just been released from prison after serving a long sentence. Lea contacted Juliette when she was released and suggested that Juliette come to live with her. Juliette had no particular desire to see her sister again. Life together isn’t easy to begin with. Juliette has to relearn certain basics. The world has moved on and she often seems confused. Although she may seem cold and distant, her attitude stems more from her being ill at ease. Gradually, the real Juliette emerges. She opens up to the world once more. But a huge question hangs over Juliette’s renaissance. Why did she do such a terrible thing fifteen years ago? (Sony Classics)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
Mystery
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Philippe Claudel
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Philippe Claudel
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
Theatrical: October 24, 2008
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
115 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
France |
| LANGUAGE(S): |
French | English |
Alternative Title: Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Kristin Scott Thomas' performance in I've Loved You So Long is one of a small handful of highlights by which people will remember this year in movies. This is acting at its most exalted.
91
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Paula Nechak
For all its moodiness, despair and disconnect, I've Loved You So Long is all about acknowledging human error and embracing ties -- to family and life -- that can't be undone.
90
Washington Post
Michael O'Sullivan
Their characters' desire (Scott Thomas and Zylberstein) -- no, need -- to repair their fragile bond feels as achingly real as the mother lode of hidden pain that gets exposed by the work of these two great actresses.
90
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Philippe Claudel gives his heroine unusual depth, which Kristin Scott Thomas reveals with unusual passion.
90
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Performances this strong and direction this sensitive make us simply grateful to have an emotional story we can sink our teeth into and enjoy.
88
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
This is one of Kristin Scott Thomas' most inspired performances.
88
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
This is a picture of quiet observation, contained emotion, the hush before the cathartic scream.
83
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scott Tobias
The film deftly sketches a sibling relationship complicated by obligation, guilt, mistrust, and, not least, an abiding love.
80
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
A revelation comes near the end that is both tremendously moving and a bit disappointing, in the way that the solutions to great mysteries frequently are. This turn does not diminish the accomplishment of Ms. Scott Thomas's deep, subtle and altogether stunning performance, but it does alter the scale of the movie, turning it into a more manageable, less existentially unsettling drama.
80
New York Magazine
David Edelstein
Philippe Claudel's direction is both probing and delicate, and Scott Thomas's face, even immobile, keeps you watching, searching for hints of her character's past, unable to blink for fear of missing something vital.
80
The Hollywood Reporter
Maggie Lee
A scintillating drama about pain and healing made with intelligence and compassion.
80
Variety
Derek Elley
A movie that is utterly engrossing despite being, on the surface, about very little.
80
The New Yorker
David Denby
Claudel turns out to be very good at the psychology of intimacy. An observant man, he has assembled a large (and, to us, unknown) cast of actors around his star, and he dramatizes her slow reawakening with an infinite number of small, sharply etched details.
75
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
Director Claudel makes you wait until film's end to discover why, exactly, Juliette committed her unspeakable crime, and it's the only disappointing aspect of the movie -- the only time I've Loved You So Long traipses into melodrama. But the rest of this utterly absorbing picture never strikes a false note.
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
Without Kristin Scott Thomas, I've Loved You So Long would be a watchable but hardly a memorable movie. With her, it's both - she so fully inhabits the character that everyone and everything around her are simply enhanced.
75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
The movie's action largely takes place beneath the skin. The pace is slow but not glacial, yet Claudel demands patience. Ultimately, I've Loved You So Long is uplifting, although one might not expect that from the thematic material.
75
USA Today
Claudia Puig
Writer/director Philippe Claudel knows just how to structure a character study of this sort, so that key elements and important secrets are revealed over time, piquing our interest. The film is almost like a novel or short story, so one's curiosity is satisfied slowly.
75
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
Scott Thomas' reserve as an actor - which probably helped keep her from top stardom after an Oscar nomination for "The English Patient" (1996) - makes her perfect casting for this French film, the auspicious debut of director Philippe Claudel.
75
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
It would be easy to overrate I've Loved You So Long, which often dampens its best effects with undue tastefulness, but the image of Scott Thomas, with her despairing resilience, stays with one.
75
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
This is a movie about actors acting; who cares why Juliette was in the pen?
75
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
The movie is held together by the scenes between Thomas and Zylberstein, which are superbly acted.
75
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
A novelist and screenwriter, Claudel's directing for the first time here, and he leans on melodramatic contrivances more than he needs to. Still, he gives us a lean and observant weepie, and the mystery of Thomas's Juliette pulls you in.
60
New York Daily News
Joe Neumaier
Scott Thomas breathes more emotion into Juliette's affectless, haunted demeanor than most actors do with pages of dialogue.
60
Village Voice
Ella Taylor
A modestly satisfying tale of sisterly love weighed down by a history of family betrayal and mendacity.
50
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
Claudel commits the cardinal sin of withholding the full story until the very end, when it spills out in a histrionic scene between the two sisters and largely exonerates the older one.
 The average user rating for this movie is 8.6 (out of 10) based on 6 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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