Simply Perfect

Let's be realistic.

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

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

On can only hope that this film servers some purpose by being used in Film 101 for film students to see all the possible attributes of definitive bad adaption. I have to say I enjoyed the novel. The novel *tries* to be original, self consciously so. One gets the sense the author had made a study of non-linear timeline work and threw in some Proust and painful immigration and old age stories. Still the novel is worth a read, it is complex, and average to above average workBut the film is a complete mess. Two thirds or more of the narrative complexity and intersections, which are precisely what makes the novel interesting, are lopped away. Amazingly the film still is disjointed and jarring, and instead of being easier to follow -- now simply full of narrative holes.

If you've read the book, this movie will be painful beyond all belief. It will prove sometimes good authors cave for monetary reasons and give up the purpose of their novel for some cheap big screen existence. All that was beautiful in the novel, the true symbols and emotions was stripped apart to bit and pieces of modern gimmicky references. Stilen names of characters and brief concepts of ideas was all that was left. A innocent girl in love with her family turned into a moody teenager, a sweet sad old man turned into an angry spout of distaste, and a sad beautiful mother turned into a crazy agoraphobic? Did the author lose the rights to her book in a card game? They left out the actual history of love...

This is a fantastic movie, full of symbols. It conveys the most diverse emotions from sympathy to admiration, from sadness to enthusiasm.Radu Mihaileanu managed to build an amazing character, Léo Gursky with whom it is impossible not to empathize. He is like an oxymoron. You can feel both his sorrow and his positive and innocent attitude towards life. He conveys sympathy as well as dignity at the same time! The film is also very dynamic, with intertwined plans, which keeps you focused. In a world where relationships are consumed so quickly, what a wonderful lesson we are given by these loyal and faithful characters who decide to love one person for their whole life!

My opinion---After "Go, Live and Become", "The Source of Women" and "The Concert" - Radu Mihaileanu returns with a most successful romantic fresco, where he will evolve these characters in different periods of their life, By the carelessness, love, promises and dramatic passages of their respective lives, with all the delicacy and emotions that Radu Mihaileanu knows how to put into his achievements by making us share them. This beautiful movie is also served in the most beautiful way by a cast of the most successful brings all the strength that will make this movie really good, thanks to: "Derek Jacobi" (masterful), the young "Sophie Nélisse" (Beautiful), "Gemma Arterton" (superb) and "Elliott Gold" (perfect), plus an effective scenario, you have all the elements of a superb film that I advise of course, because its quality is no doubt, good movie time.