Il Ya Longtemps Je T’aime
(French)
Kristin Scott Thomas delivers the performance of a lifetime, her lifetime or anyone’s.
This movie lives in the performances of its actors, in their restrained drawing out of what makes a person, its magic lies in us getting to know them just like we grow to know people. It is a montage of interactions, simply shot, giving the actors their space and there lies the triumph of the movie.
It does not tell a complicated story, a sister who has been in prison for fifteen years (we are not told why) comes to stay with her sibling and her family, it is her evolution from there on the story works with, and it is this evolution that Kristin Scott Thomas so beautifully etches, etches so masterfully, it is a performance that will stay with you long after the movie is over.
The violence of what a person faces, the tenderness, the repression of one’s own emotions, the simple delights that each of us is afforded, each of them is given its time on screen, taking the movie to a final powerful crescendo.
