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Too much of everything

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Growing up, I eagerly saw each new Truffaut film when it opened in the United States. This one had the biggest impact on me of all.It's interesting seeing the dichotomy in the reviews here: about half call the film melodramatic, pointless, and dull. The other half find it beautiful, touching, even a masterpiece.The flaws are easy to pick out. Leaud is awfully low-key to the point of blandness, and the (thankfully) few English language scenes clearly suffer from Truffaut's unfamiliarity with the language -- he failed to catch some really bad English line readings.But the narration totally works for me, giving the film the "tempus fugit" feel of a great nineteenth century novel. The purposefully rushed, monotone narration keeps the story from becoming overly sentimental. The voice-over sounds like the cold wind of Fate, sweeping the characters through the years from naive youth to the disillusionment of early middle age.I think one's response to the film has a lot to do with one's own nature: if you have loved passionately and experienced serious heartbreak, you may really GET this movie. If you're a cynical hipster who is simply embarrassed by passion, romantic love, and strong emotions, it's not for you. This is a highly emotional film for highly emotional viewers.Muriel's letter scene will divide these two groups of viewers. Some posters here call it laughable and ridiculous, perhaps because they're sexually immature or repressed, so the topic of masturbation automatically gives them the giggles. To me, this scene is heartbreaking, when you realize this poor young woman's guilt over masturbating has warped her life and spoiled her chances for happiness. It shows how a small misunderstanding or character flaw can lead to loneliness or lifelong unhappiness.This film affects me more strongly than the more famous and acclaimed JULES ET JIM, where the characters' actions strike me as more peculiar and clinical than moving. But that's just me.Few films give such a strong sense of time passing as this one, and life running through the hourglass as we poor human beings bumble, blunder, and suffer as we search for love.The final scene of an aging Leaud walking through a changed Paris he hardly recognizes as the city of his youth is unforgettable, justifying the movie's length. With a shorter running time, the film could never give you such a sense of time passing, characters growing, changing, and missing chances for happiness.For those who respond to it, this is one of the most beautiful, affecting films of the 1970s.

A mildly moving, inoffensive Truffaut movie about a young French bloke (played by Truffaut regular Jean-Pierre Léaud, far more remarkable in movies such as Les Quatrecent Coups) who in turn romances two English (or rather, Welsh!) sisters, set during the first decade of the 20th century. It's a French movie and features a love triangle, so that for a start could have turned it into a potentially unoriginal and cliché-ridden affair. Yet the main problem I had with it wasn't so much the well-treaded theme of the love triangle, as the voice-over which somehow gave the feeling the narrative was rather weak (and I suspect it was). The characters of the two sisters, especially the older sister, were surprisingly better drawn than the male lead's (or maybe it just had something to do with the fact the two actresses playing them were more appealing than the inexpressive, boyish Léaud - I simply could not bring myself to believe that these two girls would both feel so attracted to such a bland young man! He was definitely more engaging as Antoine Doinel!). The movie was also successful at portraying something of the difficulty in relations between the sexes in the Edwardian era - how young men and women really needed to go clandestine if they hoped to even get to know each other decently (not just carnally but also emotionally). The issue of women's sexuality, and how it was virtually denied them in this epoch - the price to be paid for so-called respectability - is also a theme that's successfully conveyed by the movie. How could a woman rightfully claim her own sexual identity in such a day and age? An interesting question worth raising. Fortunately, we were spared any simplistic clichés contrasting "libertine France" vs. "strait-laced Britain" as well.This is on the whole also a good-looking movie, with lovely sets, costumes and photography. One question: why does everyone in the movie (including the title) keep referring to the two sisters as English when they live in Wales and define themselves as Welsh?

Silly and pointless melodrama, good only for laughs. The fault is partly with the script, which calls for the characters to vacillate in their romantic yearnings without visible cause or motive. But mostly the movie fails because of the wooden and passionless "acting" of the male lead. His style is so non-expressive that the movie has to rely on voice-overs to reveal the passions he is supposed to be feeling. The actresses portraying the sisters do a good job with the absurd roles they are given. Along the way some clumsy symbolism is thrown in for good measure, such as the scene where, right after the concept of "physical love" is discussed, one of the sisters pulls an apple out of nowhere to hand to Claude. Unintentional comedic highlight of the movie is the letter from one of the sisters where she reveals that she is not as pure as she might seem.

Another great film by François Truffaut. This one resemble «Jules et Jim» but this time it's about a man, Claude (played by Jean-Pierre Léaud), and the love he's developing (it's reciprocal) for two sisters from Wales, Anne and Muriel (played by Kika Markham and Stacey Tendeter). Usual emotional twists that are a trademark of Truffaut. Nothing is easy, and even love can be extremely cruel.The film is moving and the acting is very good. The photography and the use of the camera is also pretty good.Out of 100, I gave it 81.