In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

This film is, no doubt, about loneliness and emptiness. But not in the casual meaning. The protagonist - Delphine can be seem in look for a guy - in order to be happy, to enjoy the life. But not, really. She is not looking for a guy or, anybody, anything. Name it either "she doesn't want to confess herself that she need somebody in her life to be happy, or understand it in the opposite meaning. I think, she is not, at the same time, is in search. As we see in the movie, she rings some people hoping to spend her vacation with. But the only one she is looking for, is she herself. In her personage, we can see ourselves. Eric Rohmer wanted to express the whole human being's purpose of life in the frames of one single personage's expressions. Everybody is looking for - not anybody or anything, but themselves. And this is about (maybe endless) search. Happy people achieve it, but not everybody, unfortunately... For movie: 10 of 10.

The green ray in the title of this French movie (also called green flash) refers to an optical phenomenon in which you can sometimes see, under certain hard to attain conditions, a green light coming from the horizon right after sunset (or right before sunrise). The famous French novelist Jules Verne wrote about this natural occurrence in a book called "The Green Ray" which is briefly referred to in the movie.The film itself is about Delphine (played by Marie Riviere, who has been in several movies of director Eric Rohmer), who works as a secretary in a Paris office. She is a slender, tallish, moderately attractive black haired woman in perhaps her late twenties and has a "difficult" personality. She has recently broken up with her boyfriend, right before the summer holidays, and the prospect of lonely vacations much saddens her (though to some in the audience it might not make the most compelling of tragic situations). So the movie is about her talking with friends about her predicament until she decides to go alone, meeting on the road a few people (including a Swedish woman who she first meets topless at a beach and who is meant to represent sexually liberal attitudes). I'm not going to spoil it for you whether Delphine will find a romantic partner or not during her travels, but the ray of the title does make an appearance.The movie is from 1986 and since it was shot on the street, you can see people with what are now "period" clothes. If you were, like me, a child in the 1980s, you will probably like this.Talky, as expected from the director, but the dialogues are not as pretentious as in other of his movies. Not the best of Rohmer, but very watchable. One problem with the plot is that it is not terribly original, since most of us have seen too many movies about single women around 30 years of age feeling lonely.

ha ha. eric rohmer's films one probably loves or hates. 'too much' talk, too little 'action', and the talk is so self-obsessed bordering on banal. his films are almost slice-of-life except most normal people don't think and talk as deeply as this. delphine is lucky to have any friends at all since she is so whiney and self-obsessed and refuses to do anything that might make her feel any better and most people would be forgiven for walking out on this film within 20 minutes. but then it suddenly occurs that she is actually suffering from chronic depression - which doesn't make her behaviour any easier to deal with but it does make you realise that she does actually have a mental illness and she cant behave any differently. she desperately wants to connect with people but constantly pushes them away, is so lonely but cant find anyone worth trusting and letting in. and you realise at the end that she is not just snobbish and picky when she finally meets someone she CAN connect with and it changes her because HE is different. so ultimately it is a very beautiful and magical film but really just another fairy-tale because, let's face it, that kind of happy ending wouldn't happen in real life (and probably he will get sick of her intensity too. lighten up!)

The Green Ray is certainly a strange fish - quite simply it's about a single girl's (almost)wasted summer, going on holiday 3 times, and each time finding herself bored and frustrated, and ultimately an outsider. We see scene after scene of holiday makers having a good time, and poor Delphine just not feeling at ease. She is somewhat opinionated, for example in the vegetarian lecture - we've all had to sit through one of those, and liable to burst into self-pitying tears, but Delphine never the less gets my respect for her refusal to opt for second best.Very few directors would be brave enough to make a film like this, but Rohmer pulls it off magnificently, and in the process delivers one of his finest movies. I can see why some viewers might find it a waste of time, but having been on a couple of solo holidays in the past I can sympathise with Delphine's predicament. Plus The Green Ray rewards the patient with a truly poetic finale.