First-time director and writer Philippe Claudel has made a remarkably beautiful, sensitive and thought-provoking film. Kristin Scott Thomas gives a tremendously subtle performance as Juliette, a woman who’s spent 15 years in prison, released into the care of her younger sister’s family. Scott Tomas is utterly convincing, drawn and haggard in ill-fitting clothes, her face for the most part almost expressionless and make-up free (why do we NEVER see actors in American films like this?). She barely speaks, so acts primarily with her eyes and her stillness – her skin almost – to convey the depths of pain and discomfort Juliette feels, as she is thrust into the centre of this ebullient bourgeois French family that she barely knows. 

The mystery of Juliette’s crime unfolds gradually throughout the film and indeed as this unfolding and uncertainty is so critical to the film, it is best to leave the plot as bald as that. It’s not easy subject matter, but what is utterly delightful about this film is the complex portrayal of the family tensions, the delicate forging of a new bond between the two sisters (younger sister Léa is played in a brilliantly contrasting tempo by Elsa Zylberstein) and there are some joyful, playful moments between the mute mischievous grandfather and the extrovert eight year old daughter. Every tertiary character is brilliantly drawn and tantalisingly interesting. I was left wanting different films for the fumbling and sympathetic police officer, the social worker, the wash-up academic.. so often we see fleeting characters like these appear and disappear onscreen in a trail of cliché… yet here each has quirks, temperament, personality.

AND all this ensemble playing doesn’t detract from the fact that this is a career-defining performance from Scott Thomas – deserving of an Oscar and more – a veritable showcase for the craft of screen acting, if only Hollywood would pay heed and reduce the vacuous celebrity mincing that passes for acting in the blockbusters! 

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