A Very Long Engagement – Tuesday 15th April 2025

J’adore French things; from their cinema, their love of the arts right down to the hairy armpits of their women (just kidding). Everything except their cuisine!

I also like Audrey Tautou, and felt like watching a romance (to compensate for the lack of it in my own life), so I decide to watch this movie (from Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the guy that also made the much loved ‘Amelie’).

I have to say, it didn’t really hit the spot for me.

It was like a ‘softer’ version of ‘Paths of Glory’, with a strong female lead, but very little actual romance.
It’s also kind of a ‘detective story’, with the mystery surrounding certain events and characters sustaining the audience’s interest. Once the mystery is solved, the film ends, quite abruptly.

The cast and locations are all very French, and along with the cinematography, they’re all very pleasing to the eye, but there was something missing. The primary love story was so under-developed, that there was no sense of longing to see the characters reunited.

It was neither a good war movie (not enough grit), nor a good romance (not enough romance!), so the whole experience was rather underwhelming.

It’s still worth watching though, especially if you’re also a Francophile, because it very much appeals to the France of our imagination; visually beautiful with an unreasonable precedence given to matters of the heart.