Review: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son

Reviews

I’ve Loved You So Long

A crass and pretentious soap opera

By PETER KEOUGH | November 4, 2008

1.0 Stars

So which portrayal of a victimized woman will win an Oscar this year? Angelina Jolie in Changeling suffers incessantly and unjustly but wears too much make-up. Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married doesn’t wear make-up and suffers incessantly but not unjustly, plus she’s always whining. Bets are on Kristin Scott Thomas in Philippe Claudel’s pretentious soap opera Il y a longtemps que je t’aime: she doesn’t wear make-up, suffers incessantly and unjustly, and in between her chainsmoking and her catatonic silences whines in French. We’re introduced to Thomas’s Juliette in an endless take where she appears without make-up, chainsmoking in catatonic silence. Having finished serving 15 years in jail for murder, she’s waiting for her sister to pick her up at the airport. What was her crime? Will the icky extended “Benetton family” of sis’s multi-cultural world accept her? The long-anticipated late-inning revelations only underscore the crass manipulation. French | 115 minutes | Kendall Square + West Newton

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ARTICLES BY PETER KEOUGH

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