Elegant Suffering
by Chris Knipp

At the beginning of Philippe Claudel's I've Loved You So Long, pale, plainly dressed, but striking, Juliette Fontaine (Kristin Scott Thomas) is met at the airport by her sister Léa (Elsa Zylberstein) and taken to stay with her, her lexicographer husband Luc (Serge Hazanavicius), and their two little adopted Vietnamese girls in their big, comfortable house in the provincial French city of Nancy. Juliette smokes a lot and stares into space. Several men become interested in her, but she remains remote and shut down. We discover that the explanations of years of travel or a lengthy sojourn in England are covers. Juliette has just been released after 15 years in prison for killing her six-year-old son and Léa has taken the risk of providing her with a place to stay and adjust. Eventually she and Léa become closer and reach an understanding and Juliette begins to make a life for herself. This is the story of the two sister's closure and Juliette's moving on.

The scenes are mournful, but not always. There are plenty of other people who liven things up, including those men attracted to Juliette, such as Lea's colleague Michel (Laurent Grevill), and the pushy older daughter P'tit Lys (Lise Ségur). But just as the title is awkward and wordy (even more so in French perhaps: Il y a longtemps que je t'aime), so the movie rambles along slowly, and seems sometimes as though it will never end.

The story is rather an obvious set-up: once Luc comes to trust Juliette with the two little girls, it's clear something will turn up to redeem her and her horrible deed. There are no real surprises, just several false paths, or odd flourishes, like a too-friendly parole officer Captain Fauré (Frédéric Pierrot) who rants about wanting to live on the Orinoko and comes to a sad end; Luc's elderly father, the benevolent, bookish Papy Paul (Jean-Claude Arnaud), also present in the house like a large, cozy piece of furniture, who has had a stroke and can do everything except speak; the two sisters' senile, institutionalized mother (Claire Johnston), who suddenly becomes lucid when she is alone with Juliette, recognizes her and addresses her in English; Léa's college-teaching and her colleagues, both irrelevant, and her outlandish outburst in a class about Dostoevsky.

These strains alternate between the irrelevant and the excessively self-conscious. As can happen, the first-time director forgets to let his movie breathe, relax for a minute or two--hang out pointlessly but atmospherically, for instance, in those cafés Juliette says were the thing she missed most in prison. The handsome one where Juliette and Captain Fauré meet is my favorite of the film's locales. Too bad the camera can't just wander around there a little. But M. Claudel just keeps sternly to his task.

And yet it seems cruel to be too hard on this dour, well-behaved, very European film, which is so full of good will and kindness--and is commendably willing to broach the most difficult moral issues. First, though it comes up last, there are the circumstances of the killing. Then, there is the commitment of two people who allow a child killer to live with them and their children. I've Loved You So Long bides its time while it sinks in how hard the situation is for all concerned--except for P'tit Lys, who takes to Juliette right away. Meanwhile, Juliette's secret is preserved with everyone else she meets, and when she reveals it in blunt terms to a group, they cannot possibly believe it and all laugh uproariously at the great riposte to the nosy host who asks her to reveal her "mystery" to everybody. Eventually, with some difficulty, Juliette gets decent work, though below her original professional status. If this is a posh rehabilitation, it's still not easy. Beautiful, elegant women suffer too; they just suffer beautifully and elegantly.

Elsa Zylberstein is an interesting, appealing actress, but she seems ordinary next to Kristin Scott Thomas and far less in control of herself. This movie exists and is worth seeing for Scott Thomas, and Zylberstein functions as her foil. But she's only just adequate for this role of the wife who has herself been scarred by her sister's crime. Her emotional outbursts are too shrill. It's Scott Thomas who shines; even her silences sing, as they must: they're the essence of the piece. She is extraordinary to look at: haggard-faced and inexpressive as she mostly is here, she's still never less than impressive, austere, regal, elegant, arresting. Is it fair to say her stoical mystery fits with the transformed English aristocrat, who speaks almost perfect French? There is something special about her, something a little remote that suits this role.

French frees her, she has said, from the class type-casting of her English, which has a snobbish English Patient ring to it. But it also limits her, as Samuel Beckett said of his French, and yet makes her more universal. She's a remarkable actress in the old style, in looks rather like a 40's stage diva or the Duchess of Windsor. Completely at home in French theater and films, she is now playing Arkadina on Broadway in one of the most celebrated productions ever of Chekhov's The Seagull. Here, her face is full of silent pain, but she endures it with nobility. Eventually we learn why, and that is the climax of the piece and her great scene, for which we've been kept waiting just a bit too long.

©2008 Chris Knipp
CineScene