Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Paynbob It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

roguegrafix As usual I read the worst critiques first but after 30 minutes of watching this movie, I realised they had missed the point of the movie -- it had gone over their heads.This movie is a classic story-telling in the style of Maquez of 100 Years of Solitude and Love at the Time of Cholera fame. The story is, realistically stupid as most of those negative reviewers pointed out. But if you "get it", the movie is compelling. It drags you in from the start and if you keep to the story-telling, NOTHING BECOMES UNBELIEVABLE (unless you lapse back to "reality").I have not read the book. I would love to.This is a story-telling genius. Watch it.

theneilrules This is by far the best French movie I have seen so far. Jean-Pierre Jeunet has delivered pure magic for the audience here. His nifty direction has done it again and of course what a dandy leading lady as an actress he has. Audrey Tautou is a very talented star indeed. She completely captures the character of Mathilde and grooves herself into it. She literally carries the entire movie on her own. It really shows her total devotion to the role. A superb blend of romance and a teasing mystery in the plot wraps up the magical show. Even with English subs, you won't have a chance of missing out on almost anything if you watch Tautou the whole time during the movie. She will make you understand the movie both in acting as well as in her words. Her performance in Amelie was exquisite also. Jodie Foster shines in her little cameo as always. You shouldn't miss out on this one. This movie has surpassed one of my favorites Tell No One of 2006.

billcr12 Audrey Tautou proves once again that she is one of the very few actresses alive able to carry a film on her shoulders. As Mathilde, a twenty year old young lady, determined to prove her fiancé is alive, after hearing that he has died during a battle as a French soldier with Germans, she spends all of her time and most of her money on that mission.Manech is one of five soldiers sentenced to death during World War I, and while a bloody battle in a trench surrounds a chaotic situation, an officer comes up with the idea to set the five condemned men to walk out towards the Germans on the other side of the fire fight. The rest of the story alternates between war scenes and a mystery led by Mathilde and a detective she has hired to find Manech, who she believes to the point of obsession, is alive. The story is a puzzle, which deserves complete attention from the viewer. Tautou is so compelling and believable as the woman in love, that I could watch her read from a phone book, and never lose interest. The script is excellent and the sets exquisite, and director Jean Pierre Jeunet's eye for detail is perfect. A Very Long Engagement is a very good movie.

Terrell Howell (KnightsofNi11) Exceptional beauty and harrowing emotion are what bring A Very Long Engagement to life. It's a Jean-Pierre Jeunet film set in France in 1920, just after World War I. Audrey Tatou plays Mathilde, a young woman whose fiancé was lost in the trenches and now she has made it her goal to find out about his whereabouts, and she was stop at nothing. She leads her own personal investigation, meeting many different people who all have their own stories along the way. Each new story brings Mathilde closer and closer to discovering what truly happened to her fiancé. And each new story offers insight from a variety of perspectives, giving the film's narrative a sort of Rashomon feel to it. But underneath it is a truly sincere and heart wrenching story of true love and what it can motivate a person to do.A Very Long Engagement is an absolutely beautiful film. Anyone who says otherwise has a very weak perception of true art. Jeunet does marvelous things with the camera and his cinematographers works wonders with the color schemes and visual nuances of the films two polar opposite settings. We have the trenches of WWI which look cold, grey, and very bleak. Then we have the glorious side of France including the great city of 1920's Paris, and the luscious French countryside, all washed over with a warm and hopeful sepia overtone. Yet both settings are very polished and very clean. Even the grittiness of WWI has a sort of smooth spectacle to it, giving the entire film a consistently artistic look. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that this film is most certainly European, and very, very French.But the beauty of the film doesn't end with its stupendous aesthetic quality. It continues into the emotionally exceptional story that is told through a variety of fascinating characters and all is told through a most sincere emotional eye. The narrative of the film works brilliantly in bringing the story together. It's a mystery that unfolds in the most lusciously refined way; an investigation that develops on top of the polished and golden glowing set pieces. The film lags a little bit through the middle, and some of it becomes redundant, but as a whole the plot is true art through storytelling that maybe could have just been a little shaved down.All in all A Very Long Engagement is an excellent film. It will satisfy an open minded audience and treat the artistic eye to something very special. It's a film that finds beauty in the strangest of places, and it is truly amazing how we can find heart and emotion on the cold and barren fields of no-man's land. A Very Long Engagement is incredibly well done and is a true work of art.