Occasionally people ask me if I could review a book or film here, and usually I make excuses so I can avoid the need to be rude if I don’t like it. This week I made an exception and agreed to watch and write a review of a film called Little White Lies, a French film that will be released shortly on DVD in the UK having been very successful in France last year.
There are certain things that make a film stand out for immediate attention. Being in French with English subtitles and being more than 2 1/2 hours long aren’t among them. These factors alone will be enough to ensure that many people miss out on this film. Well, bad news for those people because they are missing out on a very good film!
The story isn’t desperately important, but in brief it concerns a group of friends who go on holiday together every year. In the film one of their usual group is unable to come because he is seriously injured in a car crash, but the rest of them go away together while he recovers in hospital (most of the film is set around Cap Ferret, an upmarket coastal resort near Arcachon).
But the film is not so much about the setting than the characters, their relationships, and the reality that even when all seems well on the surface almost everyone has their own little secrets and deceptions, which get revealed during the course of the film.
As you watch the film the characters slowly grow on you, until you find yourself gripped by what you might learn next, or how they will react in different circumstances…but I think the more I try and explain it the more you are going to be put off – it’s not an easy film to explain in a few words, but it is very good and highly recommended!
There is one character who ultimately turns out to be ‘a good person’ which I thought was a shame, I prefer the message that no one is truly good of heart and generous in spirit, but that’s just me being a miserable old cynic, and the character is perhaps necessary to point out everyone else’s shortcomings.
Most of the actors will perhaps be unknown to foreign viewers – with the exception of the talented BAFTA award winner Marion Cotillard (she was in Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio last year) – but several of them are well known in France, and they all do a very good job in the film and I can’t think of a single one among the characters that was anything less than totally believeable.
Little white Lies will be available in the UK from 22nd August (when released in France the film was called Les Petits Mouchoirs).
If I was a film reviewer I would give a definite 5/5.
I should say, there were four of us who watched the film, all of us groaned when we saw it was a long subtitled film, and all of us loved it and were sad when it ended, so the opinion above isn’t just mine.
Anyway, watch the trailer below – then go and order two copies – one for yourself, and one you can then lend to someone else without risking your own going missing…
There are certain things that make a film stand out for immediate attention. Being in French with English subtitles and being more than 2 1/2 hours long aren’t among them. These factors alone will be enough to ensure that many people miss out on this film. Well, bad news for those people because they are missing out on a very good film!The story isn’t desperately important, but in brief it concerns a group of friends who go on holiday together every year. In the film one of their usual group is unable to come because he is seriously injured in a car crash, but the rest of them go away together while he recovers in hospital (most of the film is set around Cap Ferret, an upmarket coastal resort near Arcachon).
But the film is not so much about the setting than the characters, their relationships, and the reality that even when all seems well on the surface almost everyone has their own little secrets and deceptions, which get revealed during the course of the film.
As you watch the film the characters slowly grow on you, until you find yourself gripped by what you might learn next, or how they will react in different circumstances…but I think the more I try and explain it the more you are going to be put off – it’s not an easy film to explain in a few words, but it is very good and highly recommended!
There is one character who ultimately turns out to be ‘a good person’ which I thought was a shame, I prefer the message that no one is truly good of heart and generous in spirit, but that’s just me being a miserable old cynic, and the character is perhaps necessary to point out everyone else’s shortcomings.
Most of the actors will perhaps be unknown to foreign viewers – with the exception of the talented BAFTA award winner Marion Cotillard (she was in Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio last year) – but several of them are well known in France, and they all do a very good job in the film and I can’t think of a single one among the characters that was anything less than totally believeable.Little white Lies will be available in the UK from 22nd August (when released in France the film was called Les Petits Mouchoirs).
If I was a film reviewer I would give a definite 5/5.
I should say, there were four of us who watched the film, all of us groaned when we saw it was a long subtitled film, and all of us loved it and were sad when it ended, so the opinion above isn’t just mine.
Anyway, watch the trailer below – then go and order two copies – one for yourself, and one you can then lend to someone else without risking your own going missing…
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