Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (I've Loved You So Long)

It gives away too much about this film to give even the smallest summary of its story, so let me give away this: this movie is sublime. In the magic of its own time-lapse photography, Juliette's story "unravels," as unravel it should, but each frame is painted with a painter's care, so much care around this woman and her face and her story and those who slowly accrue around her.

I've been wanting to see this film ever since I heard a snippet about it on NPR months ago, a feeling in my bones that it be would lovely and fine: it was all that and more, if you can imagine more to be had. I love Kate Winslet, I've not seen "The Reader," but I strongly suspect that Kristin Scott Thomas was robbed of an Oscar this year.

In this and one other film this year, I've been fascinated by seeing two actors whose bodies seemed to have absorbed the deep reservoirs of pain embedded in their stories: KST in this and Dustin Hoffman in the petite confection "Last Chance Harvey." In no way would I equate the two movies, but Hoffman's performance, through his face and his body, was riddled with pain, and the way he held and showed that pain was mesmerizing. So much - so much more - was communicated when he and Scott Thomas were not speaking in their roles.

Queue it up, folks.