Cinema Ho digresses: "I've Loved You So Long"

'tis the season when the studios unleash the floodgates, releasing their best work. Add in lazy holiday vacation time and you get...a long promiscious weekend at the Landmark Cinema.

Time for a bit of sophistication, class and subtitles. Time for a trip to France.

I've Loved You So Long

This is an amazing film from a first-time director. The acting and storytelling will blow you away. If you do not weep during this movie, you are not human.

But you can read this in other reviews.

What Cinema Ho wants to discuss is: What makes French* people so stylish?

The main character gets out of prison, wears no makeup, uses no discernable hair product, tosses on clothing with no obvious regard for fashion and makes one think: Where can I get that fabulous brown trench coat? Or those ankle-strapped shoes?

Her sister runs around in the same jeans skirt, cardigan and ballet flats half the movie and looks like she stepped off the pages of Vogue.

Each woman has more style in her little finger than all of the "Real Housewives" combined.

And the cafes...oh, the cafes. Instead of discounted travel mugs and seasonally dressed stuffed bears in the background, these characters sit and discourse among gleaming wood paneling and expansive views of picaresque streets.

Wrenching tragedy never looked better.


* Kristin Scott Thomas is considered honorary French, as she acts flawlessly and fluently in her non-native language here.


Craving more film commentary? Check out The Reader, Doubt and The Wrestler.