I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

I found the film a bit illogical and ridiculous as the main character's paranoia have not been depicted realistically...well I have seen the film in the french films club lair with my vision distorted by 2 rows of other people. Anyhow the film might have been a great one had it been cut better. Had it say started at the sea and then retrospectively (getting there backwards) let the viewer to discover the whole, a viewer would personalize the idea and intentions better. In the movie on the other hand, one gets to be introduced to the 'normal' person who gets clearly mad, arranging his life as a paranoic schizophrenic yet acting sanely as before so he even manages to lead a life of a star artist with ease. There are some great plot points like leaving of the loved, stealing of the identity, accidental death, unwanted? artistic praise, sea survival friendship. Unfortunately they are loosely connected with the hero's intentions that are depicted not deeply enough to make a good sense... hence a schizophrenic.

Really impressive film that was gripping and well acted. It did drift a little and had slight pacing issues but did not detract from a compelling piece with excellent lead performances. Duris has impressed me an awful lot in his previous performances and commands the screen really well becoming one of the best leading men around. I also found the locations in Montenegro absolutely stunning and filmed in a way that really added to the feel and mood of the film. I was particularly impressed with the way it ended refusing to indulge and become predictable. This is such a rare thing these days and deserves much credit and shows bravery in both the direction and concept that was clearly well thought out. Bravo!

Let's start by saying that this is quite an unique thriller. For one thing, once the film passes the triggering factor that is the murder of Kremer, there's barely any dialogue. It not only shows the psychological effects the main character goes through once he flees France, but also brings the soundtrack forward. That is one other strong point of the movie, as the soundtrack that was composed for it is absolutely splendid, the music actually does wonders about sticking us in front of the film until the very end, as it is a perfect match for what's happening before our very eyes. It can also be said that the way the actors play their characters is convincing to say the less. Romain Duris, even without talking much, actually says a lot just by the way he plays his character. The movie nearly missed a perfect note because of two elements. First, it starts too fast, we barely know the characters, what they do, and what are the relationships between them when Kremer gets killed. A more developed introduction could have helped. The second thing is the way the movie ends. The film still feels incomplete by the end, and while that lets room for your imagination to fill, it would have been nice if they ended the movie in a more decisive way than by just letting Exben go walking the streets of yet another country. Nonetheless, The Big Picture, or, if we use its most appropriate title (translated from French) « The Men That Wanted To Live His Life » is definitely a film any thriller and/or drama fan will want (and have) to see someday.

To live one's life? The title may seem a bit too grand, in between an 18th, or 19th century moral tale crossed with french existentialist uneasiness, but the film lives up to it, turning it obliquely into a canvas of political contemporary matters.To give away what happens is to betray its mood, a mood that spills over into matters that retain and resume their urgency, and are crisply clarified in the last sequences, but I will give away a plot-line: Romain Duris lives an uneasy life, has a chillingly distant wife (she is superb), loves his kids, and arguably does not know, despite his professional panache (guaranteed by the way his home looks like and some dialogue with visitors in his office), what adult life means and how it is signaled about. He then gathers his failing marriage has an antagonist, who, in perfect french manner, does not want to be an antagonist at all, it is just the way life goes, outside how you want to live it, if you are adult and manly enough. An ugly accident happens. He has to change his life.And he does: long, ominous takes that succumb into atmospheric lakes, leaks into the artistry he wanted to pursue and he now does, but with no guarantee. It is only in its aftermath - of his amorous new situation, and how the past reappears - that he meets his destiny.What recapitulates the trajectory is the last sense of political complicity in the perilous open, a new social, humane if fragile contract.This is a film in the best way of European political films that even pave the way to a new leftist sensibility; Romain Duris is a No-man, rather than an Everyman, that has a knack, though this may seem gratuitous, to appear most elegant in his shoes. It is some time an actor had that elegance, and also some sense of contrasted foregrounding with what takes its trail on screen.