The French movie “I’ve Loved You So Long” seems to be gathering respectable reviews in spite of a plot twist that would put Spielberg to shame if it weren’t so lucrative, in this business, to indulge in all manner of preposterous plot twists. But why have critics like Ebert and Beradinelli fallen over themselves to praise this hokum? Why does Berardinelli actually insist the movie is about how society treats someone who has committed a serious crime when the movie completely emasculates that point in the last scene?
Spoiler Alert
This movie is about how the viewer can congratulate him or herself for being compassionate and understanding towards a convicted child murderer because we find out, in the end, that she was not really a child murderer. She was merely a mother who loved too much.
Check out the movie “Little Children” for a movie that more boldly and genuinely challenges the viewer in terms of his or her ability to accept the presence in a community of a convicted criminal– who really is a convicted criminal.