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Leaving starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Yvan Attal & Sergi López. Despite its characters, a strangely watchable film. Image via sinemag.com

Leaving Plot Summary: (Original Name: Partir)

Suzanne (Kristin Scott Thomas) is an English woman who has lived in France for a very long time. She has married the French doctor Samuel (Yvan Attal), left her profession (reflexology), had two kids and lived a suburban life.

When she decides to go back to work many years later, her husband agrees to build her an office in their house. They hire a small team of workers, and Suzanne gets along especially well with the originally Spanish Ivan (Sergi López). When circumstances, and their mutual easy-going nature, make them spend time together, an affair inevitably pursues. But when Suzanne realizes that she loves Ivan enough to leave her husband, she definitely wasn’t prepared for his reaction.

The bad thing about leaving your popular and well-connected husband for a penniless ex-con is that he can make sure you suffer from poverty. Suzanne is determined to win this war, but can a war like this have any winners at all?

Cons

Did my plot summary sound a tad dramatic? Well, the movie is a drama. Well, it is a romantic drama to be exact, but it is dramatic parts are more effective, as unfortunately for the most part, the romance was lost on me. Here is why:

1) The Other Guy is So Not Sexy! : I don’t want to sound superficial here but I can’t for the life of me can’t see what she saw in Ivan. Yes, as it turned out he was a really nice guy (well, apart from being an ex-con and having no problems sleeping with a married woman), but we didn’t really know that until after she left her husband to be with him.

Fun Note:

I just read this cruel review on Larry Crowne where the reviewer called it a painful experience watching an older Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks. While Tom Hanks was never especially cute, his Larry Crowne self is still a lot more appealing than Ivan. And that is saying something.

2) The Lover Won’ t Be A ” Lover” for Decades!: Give Ivan 20 years of marriage and we’ll see if he is that sexually and emotionally intense afterwards. Yes, her husband seemed like a tool but really, has she lived with Ivan for 20 years?

3) Cheating is not romantic! I am a romantic who is intrinsically against cheating. I am more of a leave- your-spouse-first-and have-sex-with-somebody-else later kinda gal.

Still, I have been known to suck it up when the lover was awesome and the husband was an jerk. For instance? Revenge with Kevin Costner.

However, here, the lover was anything but awesome. He wasn’t even remotely intriguing. Or sexy. Or …anything.

4) The Protagonist Can Give Feminists a Heart Attack! People gave Twilight hell because they thought the female protagonist was just against everything feminism stood for. Bascially, they were judging a17-year-old character for falling for a pretty rich & handsome dude who will live forever, and who will always be hot? Who will risk his life to save her? Hell, she might be emotionally dependent on the guy, but it is not like she stayed at home for 20 years, didn’t make or save a penny on her own, jumped the bones of the first non-attractive stranger, and left her obsessed husband to be with this stranger?

If we are talking anti-feminist, you need to condemn Suzanne way before Bella.

5) 3 Stupid Characters: Oh, and the characters are beyond weird and stupid. No one in the film seems to possess half a brain cell.

Why the hell did I enjoy watching it, then?

Because despite all its cons, the movie is entirely watchable. You gotta hand it to the director who shot a movie in French, evolving around weird characters. And you have to slap the actors on the back who make you curious even though you don’t respect/admire/like any of the characters!

Leaving has interesting scenery, an an OK pace. It is currently rated 6.3 on IMDB, and it has a lot to do with Scott’s terrific acting and charm along with the director’s.

Should you Watch It?

I won’t lie to you. The movie is not to be watched for eye-candy, or a sexy love story. It is more about the lengths a husband will go to make his wife’s and her lover’s lives miserable, and the incredulous lengths the wife will go to defy him, and secure her lover’s freedom.

Watch it at your own peril. You might very well hate or enjoy the experience. But all you want is a passionate love/sex story with pretty (or at least prettier) leads, you might want to see:

The English Patient. This movie is incredible. It has a beautifully told story where we get love, sex, passion, obsession, infatuation, war, compassion, betrayal and immense loyalty all at the same time. The movie has 9 Oscars, the man being cheated on is Colin Firth, the cheater is a much younger Kristin Scott Thomas and the other man is the highly charismatic and intense Ralph Fiennes.

Revenge. The cheaters are Kevin Costner and Madeleine Stowe. The husband is Anthony Quinn. The director is Tony Scott. Aren’t you curious already? From 1990.

The Scarlet Letter. In all defense, Demi Moore thinks her husband is dead when she was sleeping with Gary Oldman. Their problem was that it was the 17th century, the dude was a psycho and Gary Oldman was a reverend…

Verdict:

Watchable and likable, but not likely to leave a lasting impression, other than how stupid all the main characters were.

P.S. If you really want to watch a French movie where Kristin Scott Thomas is brilliant and the story is truly heart-breaking, watch I’ve loved you for so long. If you want a movie about cheating where you will lust after and/or empathize with the leads, watch one of the 3 movies above.

Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (I've loved you so long) with Kristin Scott Thomas. Photo: http://smackamack.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/ive-loved-you-so-long.jpg

Wow. This movie really makes me regret my previous attempts to dismiss most French films, aruging they have too much dialogue without enough emphasis on events (and causing the movie to drag forever). Well, I saw a lot of French films before coming out of it but with one movie, I snapped out of it. From now on, I am not going to be so quick to judge. In fact I decided to jump at it if it is written/directed by Phillippe Claudel.

The movie stars Kristin Scott Thomas and this is what made me want to watch the movie in the firs place. For one, she is a great actress. But I was more intrigued by the fact that she would be starring in a French movie, as a French woman. You might be remembering Kristin from The English Patient? Or Easy Virtue? Yes, she is English. And while a lot of good actors can master different accents of their languages (Hugh Laurie in House) or they can fake foreign accents impeccably (Mark Strong, Body of Lies), it is rarer for another actor to have mastered another language. Surely, Italian Raoul Bova has appeared in Hollywood movies and Spanish Antonio Banderas is a major Hollywood star. But they get to play foreigners since you can tell where they from upon hearing them. However I have so far seen really few native English speakers play in foreign films. While Kristin Scott Thomas’ character is supposed to have some roots in Britain, she is playing an essentially French character. So you end up admiring her linguistic abilities as well as her acting.

The Plot:

Juliette Fontaine (Scott Thomas) is released from prison after a 15-year-sentence. Her younger sister Léa (Elsa Zylberstein) is eager to bond with her again and help her adapt her new life as a free woman. Things aren’t going to be easy for either of them. For one thing, Elsa’s husband Luc ( is not all that willing to live with an ex-convict under his roof, where they are raising two small children. However, Léa is determined to make Juliette feel welcome and make up for the years where she wasn’t at all there for Juliette. Léa and Luc’s friend Michel is both intrigued by and attracted to Juliette, without knowing where she had been for the last decade and a half. Juliette tries to find a job, get along with government officials and to be loving again. Her cold and defensive attitude slowly is altered by her sister.

Now, the premise sounds simple and humane. And that’s exactly why it works. It is rare for a drama to arise your curiosity this much, as you are dying to know what crime she committed. It must be something awful, right? You don’t just get sent away for 15 years for self-defense. But on the other hand, if she did do something that terrible, how can Léa be so welcoming and trusting? And after you do learn about the crime, you get even more intrigued. How can she have committed that and lived with herself? What could have been the motive? Juliette never strikes you as a monster after all.

The pace, the dialogue, the setting and characters look and feel so real. What I find most beautiful about this movie is that its subject and characters are extremely universal and humane. You have a small family, a troubled sister with a troubled past, a mother in a nursing home and a live-in father they take care of. It is all about humanity, compassion, life, family, love, understanding, depression and reconnection. How can anyone not find at least one thing to relate to? Nothing is over the top and I adored the ending. Not because it is happy or sad; but because it is perfect just the way it is. And I won’t try to hide the fact that I shed a few tears. It is not a regular habit of mine, but the climax sort of explodes in your face. Any emotion you might have felt or delayed during the movie finally goes out.

You might argue about actions and the motives. What one person finds humane can be thought as monstrous by the other. But in the end, it is the story of Juliette. Not yours. And there are people who could have chosen to go down the path she did.

Final note: Kristin was nominated for a Best Actress Golden Globe in 2008 for this role. I have no idea why she hasn’t received an Oscar yet. While she was nominated in English Patient, she wasn’t nominated for this one.

7.7. on IMDB.

9-10/10 from me.

Leaving starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Yvan Attal & Sergi Lopez

Il y a longtemps que je t’aime (I’ve loved you so long)