Very Cool!!!

Sadly Over-hyped

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Alexandra Leclère has made a wonderful first feature; I was entertained throughout this funny and sometimes bitter film about a provincial, somewhat naive and emotionally open woman (Catherine Frot) who visits her older sister (Huppert) who lives with her husband and son in Paris. Martine can't stand Louise's gaucheness, her forgetfulness (forgetting her wallet at home before visiting a dress shop) and the way Louise has of opening her heart to strangers. The dinner party at Martine's flat is wonderful: Louise is telling the guests of her past love, while Martine gets drunker and more aggressive every minute. The last laugh is on Martine, of course: her husband has been having an affair with her old friend Sophie.I have had harsh things to say about Isabelle Huppert in the past, but here she is wonderful. She plays the frantic jealousy of her character to perfection: there is a scene (shocking, violent) when Martine reads the letter from their mother to Louise, in which the mother rejects her daughters, saying she does not want to see or hear from them again. The triumphal anger of Martine and the distress of Louise are palpable.

Fantastic acting, very entertaining. Though the things which happen in the movie are not always nice, it has been long since I have followed a movie with so much enjoyment from the first to its last minute. Not having read anything about the movie before, I was open to let the action surprise me. I recommend anyone not to read to much about the storyline before watching it, but just go and watch. To answer one of the comments above, yes, the movie is also interesting for people not familiar with the Paris-Countryside clinch (such as me). I think it is because the feelings/situations transported in it, though set in a French framework, are universal. There have been situations in my life when I have felt more like the one or like the other sister. Different as they are, the reactions of all characters are completely understandable. The movie does the trick to combine affectionate caricature and merciless realism. This is why the movie is catching and moving, while at the same time you are observing and enjoying from a kind of layd-back perspective. I just realize that might be the reason why the action never made me feel embarrassed, and allowed me to watch at times with some voyeuristic indulgence. Yes, the movie does not condemn any character, but brings affection for human imperfection. If you like the taste of film food which is a quite perfect dish of different flavours, go watch.

Despite occasional overacting, this movie contains some interesting psychological and sociological insights. Most of the situations are plausible, even when they contain stereotypes. Although Martine's character could be construed as vicious and riddled with over-the-top intolerance, in the end she arouses more pity than contempt. Her younger sister Louise, fresh from the provinces and utterly devoid of sophistication and savoir-faire, in the end turns up trumps, a modern version of Andersen's ugly duckling. All the minor characters appear credible, as they witness with patient puzzlement the increasingly hysterical outbursts of the Parisian sister. A subtle touch is provided by Martine's unprepossessing little boy, who should be, but isn't, the logical comfort to his mother's depressive condition. If there is a moral to this fast-paced middle-class comedy, it is that no intelligent woman should sentence herself to merely being a wife and mother. Louise, on the other hand, has twigged this, and triumphs in the end.

This comedy of manners depicts too opposite sisters in a satire that is too crude and clichéd to be really moving. The Paris/province (rest of France)divide is a source of inspiration for many French comedies but the rotten humor and the engaging characters cannot make up for the very predictable plot. Some moments are really funny though, there is a kind of tenderness in the caricatured portrait of each sister so all in all it's not such a bad try for a first film. Eventually it's more a duel of two styles of acting, an encounter of 2 different actress with their own class. Not exactly a good film but a pleasant shot.