Fresh and Exciting

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

I have to come out in the middle on this one. It is not as great and brilliant as some say. On the other side, it is not as boring and cold as other people say.Yes, it is very much a two character stage play. There are however, a number of camera and editing tricks that keep the viewer off-balance. The switching from black and white to color, for example, is startling and effective.The acting isn't really movie acting, it is stage acting. One could justify it to an extent in that the main characters are wealthy and highly mannered in their speech and action. However, this carries over into the servants who display a bland seriousness in all their actions as well. On the whole, the stylized acting is a draw back to the audience's character involvement, while adding to the alienating atmosphere.See it when you are in a somber mood and your close relationships are not working out. You'll feel better knowing that there have been couples worse off than you.On the positive side, there are a few tense and gripping moments in the film that suddenly pop out. The scene where the man finds the letter from his wife is one of those scenes. It is not exactly unforgettable, but it is quite effective and gripping.At times, the movie seems like the Cliff Notes for "Scenes From a Marriage" Still, for all its faults there is a clear prospective on marriage in a certain near high society social class. The film gets some credit for showing that it is not particularly pretty when you look closely at it. It deserves credit for its sincerity and honesty.

As well as being a huge Huppert fan, I'm also a keen Conrad reader. This version of The Return is probably the best ever adaptation of a Conrad story. Some of it is almost line by line from Conrad's descriptions. An incredibly sensitive interpretation and a great film in its own right. Bravo! This woman is perhaps the greatest actress of the day, both on stage and screen and Gabrielle is one of her best roles. She is able to bring a sense of fragility and strength to her best parts, as in La Vie Promise, for instance. Emma Bovary could not have been a better part for her, either. I have watched Gabrielle probably as many times as I have read The Return and it is a wonderful tribute to the talent of all involved.

a very dull filmThis film displays the time period with great accuracy, the attitudes of the upper class and there lifestyle. The problem is we never learn or are shown anything particularly interesting about it. the film only really gets going right at end, when we start to see remotely interesting dialogue and situations but the film is a long hard slog to reach this point.While admittedly the 'experimental' effects gave us a good laugh afterwards. They contributed little to the story and their only purpose seemed to be to get the word experimental mentioned in any review of film. the inter-titles were both woefully pointless and at times laughable. the music created horror like tension at times which just added to your disappointment when one of the characters did not lose a head.there are plenty of short stories out there dying to bet converted into movies WHY in the world did the director choose this one.

This is a wonderfully acted dramatization of 19th Century English society, with 'invisible' servants in excess, stereotyped poses and inhibitions built around social mores of what should have been an unbelievable epoch. However, the 21st Century music, cinematic tricks (black and white to color switches) and pretentiousness of the direction distract the viewer from what should have been provocative and gripping themes. Understanding the emotional impacts of the customs, social strata and expectations during this era should have been fascinating, but somehow becomes boring in this film. One tires of seeing the four servants in the kitchen washing, drying or watching the handling of a single dish, or the two or more servants who appear for almost any activity, or even the regularly attended Thursday dinner parties suggest that privacy is an alien concept to that milieu.