That was an excellent one.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

"A Tale of Winter" is a film that apparently several reviewers really liked here on IMDb. Well, as for me, I hated the film and found the characters to be rather annoying as well as difficult to believe or like.When the film begins, Félicie is having a brief but wild affair with Charles. They barely know each other--and she doesn't even know his last name. When they depart, he gives her his address and she loses it...and they don't get back together. Now it's five years later. Félicie has a child and Charles is the absent father. During this interim, two men have fallen for her. However, Félicie is only interested in them as friends and openly tells them both that her heart only belongs to Charles...a guy she barely knew and whose whereabouts are unknown. She also openly admits that she expects that he might just show up in the future and they'll live happily ever after...and because of this she won't commit to another man. As a result, her life and her child's are on hold...waiting and hoping for some miracle.I found the main character to be incredibly childish and unlikable. She was a hopeless romantic...but also an immature mother and self- absorbed lady. Much of what she says throughout the film is pretentious and banal...particularly when she's trying to sound religious and insightful. Why the men in her life loved her, I have no idea...none...and that is a big weakness of the story. What made all this worse is that the director gave it all a fairy tale like ending. Had she lived waiting and waiting and ultimately wasted her life (like Miss Havisham from "Great Expectations"), I think I would have enjoyed the film much more because it would have seemed real. Instead, the movie seems to give hope to the dopey people of the world...people who refuse to grow up and face reality. Rarely does a film annoy me as much as this one did.

We tried to watch this yesterday and I have no idea how this major bore of a movie can be rated so high (7.2, are you insane ?). I don't normally comment on movies I don't like, I figure if there are people who like them, good for them. But here I am really surprised not to see this movie in the bottom 10.First of all, it's horribly acted; the main actress is barely OK, but the rest of the cast (particularly the mother) has awful rhythm, glances at the camera, etc. The dialogs, which are the only thing the movie rests on, are so bad they are laughable. Then the movie is slow, oh so slow. To say that nothing ever happens would be an understatement.And the story itself is uninteresting: "woman unsatisfied by her men dreams of the perfect man which she remembers from a vacation fling". Great. We can all relate, except that we aren't half as dumb as she is. I wanted to slap some sense into her (just like in Gone with the Wind).But the final draw is that it is utterly predictable: after half an hour of watching this 2-hour long turd, I told my wife how I thought it would end and I went to read a book. She watched it (in fast forward) to the end and I had the ending spot on. And by the way, don't say that it is a woman's movie: she hated it too ! I only give ratings of 1 to movies I left or fell asleep halfway through and there are less than 10 in this category. Movies I hate deeply but watched completely get a 2.

Felicie (Charlotte Véry), another of Eric Rohmer's attractive, smart, but terminally indecisive women is still feeling the effects of the abrupt end to her summer romance five years ago. Having mistakenly given her lover Charles (Frédéric van den Driessche) the wrong address as he was leaving for the U.S., she cannot really love other men and holds onto a strong belief that Charles will one day show up and all will be right with the world. Eric Rohmer's second film in his Four Seasons series, A Tale of Winter, is one of his most engaging romances, a film that like the Shakespeare play of the same name, postulates that passion and strong intention can lead to totally unexpected results.The opening sequence shows Charles and Felicie enjoying the sun, making love, then parting at the end of their vacation. The scene then shifts to Christmas in Paris five years later. Elise (Ava Lorachi), the daughter she had with Charles is now four years old and has seen her father only through photos. Felicie has two lovers but none suit her. Maxence (Michael Voletti) is a heavy set, not too deep hairdresser who is moving from Paris to Nevers and wants Felicie to come with him. She loves being with him but is not madly in love with him. After first saying no, she agrees to go to Nevers but once there, has yet another change of heart after an epiphany about Charles during a visit to a cathedral and returns to her mother in Paris.Felicie's other suitor, Loic (Hervé Furic), is a bookish librarian who is obviously crazy about her but whom she just wants as a friend. He is a Catholic intellectual and Felicie is more free-spirited and they engage in typical Rohmerian exchanges about Christianity, reincarnation and the nature of the soul. A new awareness opens up when she visits the theater with Loic to see Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale. When she sees King Leontes bring a statue of his wife to life after being told, ''It is required that you do awake your faith'', her own ability to "awake her faith" is evoked and leads to one of Rohmer's more upbeat and satisfying conclusions.

Second chapter of Rohmer's Tales Of The Four Seasons (before filming Winter's Tale he made Spring's Tale). This time the french director tells us the story of Felice, a girl in the search of her soul mate. Actually she had found him in some holidays, his name was Charles, and she got pregnant, but at the end of that summer of joy and love she gave him a wrong address... so she never saw his love again and couldn't locate him either. Five years after she's living in Paris, at her mother's house, with her daughter and she's going out with two different men, although she's not in love with none of'em. She can't love anyone but Charles. Will she ever find the lost love of her life? Does she believe in miracles? That's something we'll find out as we watch this Rohmer's film.Gene Hackman said in some movie that "watching a Rohmer's movie is just like watching a plant grow". Obviously that'll be the opinion of most of the people (especially those who enjoy themselves watching Steven Seagal or Van Damme's movies); but there's something else in cinema (and in life) as well as kicks, guns, explosions, and parties. What about feelings, reflexions, love, doubts, philosophy? That's what Eric Rohmer seems to care about, and that's what he usually talks about in his movies. Ordinary people, living ordinary lives, with their ordinary problems, and their ordinary conflicts. In some way he's such a "voyeur": he puts his camera in some corner of the room and lets the characters express themselves. How they feel, what do they expect from life, what are their dreams, their fears... I think that's why he usually works with unknown actors and actresses: that way the audience feels like they're watching a completely unknown talking or crying, or laughing. I would not work the same if he picked Gerard Depardieu or Juliette Binoche for this sort of movies. Also he uses a literary language in the dialogues (dialogues, the base of Rohmer's cinematography), though his movies show ordinary situations the people in there definitely doesn't talk like normal people. Some may say that's a handicap, that people doesn't talk about existence and the meaning of life when they're having a coffee in some coffee-shop; but when I want to hear real-life dialogues with real-life sentences, rough language, and so I just go and watch some Tarantino movie. I wouldn't recommend Rohmer's movies to anyone; 'cause I assume that movies such as Winter's Tale may result boring for many people. So I only recommend this movie (and the rest of Tales of the Four Seasons) to those who look for something else in cinema and (again) in life apart from hollow entertainment.My Rate: 8/10