From the Land of the Moon

In life many times the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence . Both stars in this film are excellent and perfectly cast . Is the glass half empty or half full ? Sometimes it takes a shock to see that your glass is full and has been all the time . This is a beautiful movie and a" must see" for Marion Cotillard fans . It also could double for a marriage counceling film !!!!!!! True love is hard to find and sometimes harder to see .

Greetings again from the darkness. Director Nicole Garcia (The Adversary, 2002) takes the best-selling novel from Milena Agus and hearkens back to good old-fashioned movie melodrama – with a French twist. Of course, most any project is elevated with the beautiful and talented Marion Cotillard in the lead role. Few can suffer on screen as expertly as Ms. Cotillard, and she conveys that disquiet through most of this story.

What is love? You'd best not look to Gabrielle (Cotillard) for clarification. As a young woman, her search for love and sexual fulfillment follows the fantasies of the novels she reads (Wuthering Heights). Her corresponding inappropriate behavior teeters between delusion and hysteria. It's the 1950's in rural France, so her actions and attitude are not much appreciated, and her parents bribe Jose (Alex Brendemuhl), a local bricklayer, to marry Gabrielle. She is then given the choice of (an "arranged") marriage or a mental institution.

As a romantic dreamer whose blurred reality expects love to mirror those romance novels, Gabrielle's self-centeredness and failure to grasp reality results in a loveless marriage – and easily one of the most uncomfortable lovemaking scenes in the history of French cinema. Beyond that, severe kidney stones make it impossible for her to bear children. In hopes of "the cure", she is sent for treatment to a spa in the Alps (it's the same spa from Paolo Sorrentino's 2015 film YOUTH).

While at the spa, she meets handsome Andre (Louis Garrel), a gravely ill soldier from the Indochina War. Gabrielle imagines Andre to be everything she dreamt a lover should be (except for that whole sickness thing). The contrast between the two love-making sessions is startling, and it seems as though Gabrielle has found her bliss.

The years pass after her release from the spa, and Gabrielle makes one mistake after another … blind to what and who is right in front of her … while holding on to the dreamer's dream. She is certainly not a likable person, and is downright cruel to her loyal (and extremely quiet) husband Jose. However, Ms. Cotillard is such an accomplished actress that we somehow pull for Gabrielle to "snap out of it".

The novel was adapted by Jacques Fieschi, Natalie Carter and director Garcia, and you'll likely either be a fan or not, depending on your taste for old-fashioned melodrama. Despite numerous awkward moments, it's beautifully photographed by cinematographer Christophe Beaucame. Additionally, the music plays a vital role here – both composer Daniel Pemberton's use of the violin, and the duality of Tchaikovsky's piano concerto that connects Gabrielle's two worlds. You may say she's a dreamer, but I hope she's the only one.

Another bright movie from Marillon Cotillard, the very talented French actress who shines in other ways in this limited, averagely deep production. Everything is on point in a simple, semi-impactful and mysterious way. The beginning was well developed alongside the middle, just the end and what precede it was a little average, hurting the production in a minimal to the sense way.

• Screenplay/storyline/plots: 7
• Production value/impact: 7
• Development: 7.5
• Realism: 7
• Entertainment: 7
• Acting: 8
• Filming/photography/cinematography: 8
• VFX: 8
• Music/score/sound: 7
• Depth: 7
• Logic: 6
• Flow: 7.5
• Drama/romance: 6.5
• Ending: 6.

I will be honest, I did see this film because it is directed by Nicole Garcia, one outstanding female French director, the best I guess. She has a very sensitive way of filming. So, I did go to see this film without hesitating. And of course I don't regret it at all. Marion Cotillard, whom I don't particularly appreciate, is at her best here. Although I don't crave for her, she is a damn good actress, but sorry, I felt a little emptiness here, I don't really know where. Something missed somewhere. The actors and actresses around her are flawless, but I persist on my opinion. I don't think that's a matter of directing. Not with Nicole Garcia. Maybe because this kind of scheme has already been told a hundred times before.

But it remains a good film.

I watched this at home on DVD from my local library. My wife skipped, she doesn't enjoy reading subtitles. It is mostly in French and I watched it with English subtitles.

I got the movie mainly because it features Marion Cotillard. She is a lovely lady and one of the best actresses of the current generation.

Here she is Gabrielle, part of a farming family in France that includes her dad and mom, plus a younger sister. We see that she was difficult growing up, what some may call "mean." And also fixated on nudity and sex. Looking like she might never marry, her parents made a deal with one of the workers, a Mr. Rabascal, if he would marry her then they would help set him up with his own masonry business. He agrees, Gabrielle eventually goes along, but she tells him directly that she will never love him and they will not have husband-wife relations. In her magnanimity she tells him she doesn't mind if he goes into the city to hire a prostitute.

I will not say much more except to say it is mainly a character study of Gabrielle, how she deals with her difficult personality, in the end trying to achieve some happiness with her husband and son who has a gift for playing the piano.

Marion Cotillard is superb.