GAMES: GameSpot | GameFAQs MUSIC: Last.fm | MP3.com MOVIES: Metacritic | Movietome TV: TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games TV

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 



Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

I've Loved You So Long
Sony Pictures Classics

I've Loved You So Long reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 79 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
7.6 out of 10
based on 28 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 25 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

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: DVD: March 3, 2009 
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

What The Critics Said

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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
90
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Philippe Claudel gives his heroine unusual depth, which Kristin Scott Thomas reveals with unusual passion.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
89
Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
But let's be honest: Any actress can do melancholy; it takes a special talent to recognize that there's a certain luxuriousness, a certain joy, to be found in longtime self-hatred.
Read Full Review
88
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
This film teaches the rewards of patience for directors, for actors and for audiences, too. The compelling reality of Juliette's plight comes from how subtly and gradually she emerges from her carapace.
Read Full Review
88
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
This is a picture of quiet observation, contained emotion, the hush before the cathartic scream.
Read Full Review
88
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
This is one of Kristin Scott Thomas' most inspired performances.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
83
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
It's no insult to the rest to say that this is one of those films that sells itself on the strength of a single performance.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
80
The Hollywood Reporter Maggie Lee
A scintillating drama about pain and healing made with intelligence and compassion.
Read Full Review
80
Variety Derek Elley
A movie that is utterly engrossing despite being, on the surface, about very little.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
75
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
This is a movie about actors acting; who cares why Juliette was in the pen?
Read Full Review
75
Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
The movie is held together by the scenes between Thomas and Zylberstein, which are superbly acted.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
60
Village Voice Ella Taylor
A modestly satisfying tale of sisterly love weighed down by a history of family betrayal and mendacity.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 25 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Bob T gave it a1:
What a completely implausible, unrealistic tale. Why would any one not admit the true motive for such an act - love based euthanasia unless they were totally pathologically masochistic and equally totally inconsiderate of their family's feelings? Why wouldn't any one have arrived at the most obvious,and reasonable explanation? If you like a melodramatic weeper this film should float your boat. Of course Kristin is very easy on the eyes, even when morbid of visage as is mostly here .

Donald W gave it a4:
Boring, depressing, and lots of smoking. What a combination.

Paul D gave it a10:
Terrific novelistic movie with a superb central performance and vivid supporting characters. Kristin Scott Thomas elevates the movie above melodrama with her complex, subtle, multi-layered protrayal of a woman who is released from prison after 15 years for a seemingly horrible crime. Claudel provides strong direction with an emphasis on the little details that make all the difference in keeping the viewer hooked. Some people may find it a little slow, but I think this is primarily because most American movies seem to have been made for an audience with the attention span of a gnat. If Thomas doesn't receive an Academy Award nomination, there is no justice.

Linda P gave it a10:
A beautiful story of love and trust between sisters.

Linda L gave it a10:
Brilliantly acted, deeply moving. Admittedly, there's not a big American-movie-style payoff, that moment when, say, Julia Roberts goes into raving hysterics and that vein on her forehead stands out. The beauty of Kristin Scott Thomas's performance is in the way she slowly, gradually emerges from the frozen awfulness of her crime & punishment, and starts to become a feeling person again. The sister's determination to help her is moving, too.

J Male gave it a1:
Horrible. I thought this movie would never end.

Rye C gave it a3:
A generally slow drama that never pays off. I was really surprised to see the praise for Kristin Scott Thomas. I found her performance to be that of a one trick pony. She's detached and uncomfortable with life the whole movie. With the exception of a couple scenes, she doesn't need to show much range. This movie wasn't a bad story it just didn't move me and that may be due to the two hour runtime. This really should have been a short film or at least under 80 minutes. Pass on this one unless you enjoy the feeling of watching paint dry while watching films.

Read more user comments...

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

Popular on CBS sites: iPhone 3G | Fantasy Football | Moneywatch | Antivirus Software | Recipes | E3 2009

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use