"I've Loved You So Long": Kristin Scott Thomas is stellar, but drama is a prisoner of contrivances

Previously nominated for a best-actress Oscar for "The English Patient," Kristin Scott Thomas could earn another nod for her stunning performance in Philippe Claudel's "I've Loved You So Long," an uneven new French film that plays like a companion piece to the recent British drama "Boy A."

Both movies deal with the return to society of a longtime prisoner whose crime was clearly serious. The chief difference is that the young hero of "Boy A" embraces attempts at rehabilitation, whereas the middle-age central character in "I've Loved You So Long" seems vacant, haggard and largely indifferent to her family's attempts to communicate with her.

The bilingual Thomas plays Juliette, a doctor whose younger sister, Lea (the excellent Elsa Zylberstein), picks her up at an airport after Juliette has completed a 15-year sentence for murder. Most of Lea's efforts to re-establish their relationship are initially rebuffed, as Juliette devotes much of her attention to the cigarettes she chain-smokes.

At the time of her imprisonment, their parents were so appalled by Juliette's crime that they told Lea to forget that she even had an older sister. When Juliette demonstrates what a short fuse she has, you can't help thinking they might have had a point. Lea claims she never wanted to give birth to a child, perhaps because she didn't want to pass on tainted genes.

Lea's husband, Luc, is so fearful that Juliette will revert to past behavior that he throws a fit when Lea wants to leave her alone with their adopted children. Publicly forced into a confession, Juliette tells the truth (well, part of it) and gets treated like a punch line. When she applies for a job, she's thrown out of an employment office when her secret is revealed.

Meanwhile, Lea goes to pieces in front of the literature class she's teaching on "Crime and Punishment." Accusing her students of shallowness and worse, she suddenly bolts from the classroom. It's perhaps the most shocking moment in a film that seems designed to provide a jolt every 15 minutes or so.

Thomas is true to the character throughout the film's overlong two hours, but director Claudel — a novelist turned filmmaker — isn't always able to come up with convincing reasons for Juliette's numbness. When she loosens up and the explanations for her behavior are finally revealed, you may feel tricked into empathizing with her because of a plot contrivance.

The movie is most alive when it's establishing the way Lea and Luc's household works (and how it works on Juliette's state of mind). They have a rowdy maid nicknamed Katrina ("after that storm," claims Lea), one of the children is a spontaneous tomboy ("I bury the dolls I get") and, as a family, they really know how to carry on at a picnic when given the opportunity.

John Hartl: johnhartl@yahoo.com