Wonderful character development!

Too many fans seem to be blown away

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

A film with nothing new to say about love,war or anything else unfortunately. Cliché watchers will have a field day as conflicted Nazi officer falls in lust with lonely, put - upon Frenchwoman. He is a composer who left home to join the Wehrmacht and is somehow surprised that his fellow soldiers are not all gentlemen looking for a "good" war but frankly barbarians almost to a man. "Mein Gott,what am I doing here?"he must have thought. Too late,pal;get on with the job of killing Jews,Frenchmen,Russians,gypsies, the mentally ill, the disabled and other such "untermenschen". He has written a sub - sub Debussy piano piece and plays it.He makes the piano talk -it says "Take your hands off me!" His easily - impressed French mistress - seemingly in a semi - catatonic state throughout their "affair" spends hours fingering his music lovingly. Read into that what you will. Eventually they both remember there's a war on and they're on opposites sides of it. She tries to smuggle a wanted man to Paris,and is stopped at a sentry post . Two soldiers end up getting shot. The officer rides up on his motor bike (the things German composers can do,eh?) and after an unconsciably long time staring at each other open - mouthed lets her drive off. By this time my eyes were blurred not with tears but with sleep. Mis K.Scott - Thomas at her ball - breaking best is worth the five stars . Otherwise if there's a documentary about sugar cane production in China on another channel - watch it.

If you loved the book as much as I did, stay away from that movie! The book was so beautifully written, with so much subtlety. The movie ruined it, it's very heavy handed and the actors can't save it, I felt like I was watching an other Hollywood movie. And I'm not even talking about the factual errors. No wonder it never made it to the big screen here!

I was drawn to this film as I knew about Irene Nemirovska - that she had converted to Christianity but that did not save her and she died early on in Auschwitz. The first book which hardly features in this film ( strafing the column of refugees) details the flight of a bank and its personnel to Tours - actually the map is shown in the credit sequence. When I read it - it was exactly as my father described as he was caught and made a POW at Dunkirk. I recommend it to anyone to read. The story line of the film is well worth seeing - I saw it with a friend and after I went home he sat back for the rest .... Easily as good as The Black Book and WInter War. I thought it was very well crafted - the mayoress never says to the mayor "what I did has led to your death" but it was all poignantly acted. Lucille never confesses her love for Bruno.

The movie is about WW2 drama/romance although i find the romantic part is not very convincing. The events go in a french village under the Nazi occupation. Michelle Williams did a very good job in this movie. She was very convincing and her acting was believable. On the other hand, Matthias Schoenaerts who plays the role of a German officer wasn't at the same level. The movie could've been much better if he was replaced with another more passionate actor. The overall drama is good and puts you through the suffering of the french people during WW2 but the love-story thing was not very convincing to me!. Kristin Scott Thomas also made an impressive performance. The movie has most of the elements of success, the story, actors, ...etc. But somehow, you feel that something is missing, like, the movie lack more events or a better leading actor!