Released in France in October of 2010 - to boffo box office by the way - this quite wonderful little film (a film that some have tossed off as merely a French Big Chill - a line that though somewhat accurate nevertheless sells it very very short) is a film that by all intents and purposes should get a big release here in the states. Now of course when I say "big" I mean foreign film big, which I suppose s small by most standards, but you get the picture - the film should play big here in the US. Has it? Well no it has not. Will it? Who the Hell knows.
In searching for a US distributor the closest I have come is an IMDb message board comment that Lionsgate is handling such distribution. Unfortunately nowhere can I get this corroborated - including from Lionsgate's own website. Now IMDb (and we know how accurate they can be) lists the film as having had a US release back on April 11, 2011. This of course never happened. Why oh why is this film not being picked up? Granted, its running time of 154 minutes could be a turn-off for American audiences (though that is still shorter than more than half of the Harry Potter films, and they did not do so poorly) but in every other aspect it just spells big box office. Of course again, I mean "big" as in foreign film big.
I am guessing that eventually, especially considering its huge success in Europe, that it will see our shores, but I do wish they would hurry up about it as the film is quite the surprising work of cinema. Starring some of the bigger (at least in cinephilaic circles) names of French cinema (only one of which is really well-known here) such as Francois Cluzet, Gilles Lellouche and Marion Cotillard, the film, directed by Guillaume Canet who made the thrilling Hitchcockian Tell No One (incidentally featuring the aforementioned M. Cluzet and M. Lellouche), is an interweaving look at a group of Parisian bourgeoisie who spend the summer holiday together while one of their closest friends lies near death back home in Paris.
Full of secrets and more secrets, this close knit group begins to unravel as they each take a look at their lives and their relationships with one another. The comparison to The Big Chill is inevitable I suppose as the plot lines do diverge quite often and both are a melange of comedy and tragedy and both use music prominently, but I think Little White Lies goes deeper and perhaps more daringly into the psyche than the former film did. Another thing it has in common with the 1983 Lawrence Kasden directed Oscar nominee, is a gaggle of stellar performances. Each and every one in this cast hands in a spectacular performance, highlighted by Cluzet, Lellouche and Cotillard.
Of course all these ramblings just lend themselves toward a school girl like gushing toward the film. I did quite enjoy this film upon my initial viewing, and could foresee it making my Best of 2011 list (if it is released in time, if not then my Best of 2012 instead), but gushing, especially of the school girl variety is a bit unbecoming on someone who considers themselves a film critic of (at least) little repute, so I suppose I will stop such right now and move on. A fully realized review will be forthcoming, and will probably see the light of (cyber)day sometime around the film's eventual (and hopefully inevitable) US release. You hearin' me distributors! For now I wait.
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