MovieChat Forums > Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (2009) Discussion > The ending (major spoilers!)

The ending (major spoilers!)

posted 16 years ago by The_Psychic_Goat
73 replies | jump to latest

I saw this film today as part of the Times free screenings. I really enjoyed most of the film but I thought the ending was a complete cop-out.

Firstly, the idea that someone would kill their own son is very interesting and not something often dealt with in cinema. The film would have been more interesting to me if she had killed him in a violent rage or something and the family had to decide whether they could trust her and whether she could trust herself.

Secondly, it was rather unbelievable. Why would nobody else notice that the child was sick? And she's very conveniently a doctor and did the tests without telling anyone. Plus the reasoning for not telling people was a bit weak I thought. But surely there was an autopsy!? It was a murder case...

Thirdly, it was predictable. When it was revealed why she had been in prison for so long I thought "Ooh, this is interesting, unless it turns out it was for euthenasia."

Fourthly, it's an easy way out to make the viewers like the character. It felt too neat and I preferred thinking about whether it was possible to like a character who would do such a thing rather than feeling sorry for her which you get from a lot of films.

So basically, I did like the film, I just wish it had had the guts to finish in a more interesting way. It's like if "The Woodsman" with Kevin Bacon had finished with it turning out that he hadn't been a peadophile. It betrayed the whole point of the film for me and rather undermined the rest of the feelings I'd had watching the film.

Anyone agree/disagree?

If it weren't for my horse I wouldn't have spent that year in college.

[–] howmuchart 16 years ago

I agree, psychicgoat. I saw this film yesterday and left feeling frustrated because I thought the film had such potential but the ending was just unbelievable and that ruined it for me. I find it hard to believe that this child was so sick he could hardly move, and yet no one noticed -- not teachers, neighbors, friends or relatives, or even the child's father. If they had, they would have testified as such at the mother's trial and her motive would have been revealed.
I also found it to be too much of a stretch that this woman, a doctor, ran all the tests on her son herself without any help, and then decided not to seek any treatment or even ask for a second opinion. I think a desperate mother would have at least asked another doctor to review the lab results. And if she had, again, that person would have testified.
I too found her reasons for not revealing the truth to be weak. I felt like there were a lot of interesting directions in which this story could go, but ultimately things wrapped up much too nicely. I would have found the film much more thought-provoking if they hadn't made the mother a martyr figure.

[–] i-burgess1 16 years ago

I cannot agree with your comments. The doctor character tells you that she worked in a lab. The child clearly had some genetic condition which was fatal. Remember she took him away and was accused of kidnap. She blamed herself for her son's death and essentially became mute. In a very real sense she is deeply depressed. The character is a strong woman who did not seek sympathy - she believed she deserved to be punished because she felt she had given her son the disease rather than because she administered the fatal injection. I thought the portrayal of change in her relationships with her sister, her brother-in-law but most of all with Michel was senstively handled. Further, puzzling behaviour became explicable as we learned more about her - e.g., shouting at her niece when the girl wished to read her one of her poems. Seemed harsh at the time but became sensible when we see the paper on which are the test results. The touch on Michel's shoulder from Juliette says it all - Juliette is beginning to come back to life - her inner numbness is going.

[–] c_bolavienon 16 years ago

Philippe Claudel answered to this on a french board :

(sorry for the bad traduction, i'm french)
Huge spoilers of course !!!!!!

"To make a film aout a woman who would have killed her child on an impulse, one moment of madness, a sudden rage is undoubtedly possible and interesting, but this was not my subject: I wanted to speak of an ordinary woman who, has one moment, was placed in front of an extraordinary situation, who made a choice, and who didn't wait that society judge her, but condemned herself, heavily, so she went away from the life, locked up herself in a silence as in most terrible of the punishments."

And I don't share you point of view about the movie but I respect it. ;)

[–] sarchiorama 16 years ago

my initial reaction to the movie is lame but then you give hope
a chance the storywriter took ten years to write this
a very original script..

I can see some other directors/producers wanting to copy
the idea with a [more] positive conclusion weather they be
european american or asian I wonder how the australian groups
would handle this work

I liked picnic at hanging rock

you have to look at it from the actors and the directors
point of view when would you date this to today hospitals
make out [uk in particular] they are on top of the situation
and govenments have their health and safety executive
which at times make me wonder if they know whats going on..

I used to favorite movies on imdb but found my tastes change
over the course of time just saying I need to to find a way
to list things..

this resume' is about a year old have'nt updated since..
http://waterhole-forma.blogspot.com/2006/09/my-movies-some.html

[–] movie80 15 years ago

Philippe Claudel answered to this on a french board :
sorry for the bad traduction, i'm french)
Huge spoilers of course !!!!!!

"...: I wanted to speak of an ordinary woman who, has one moment, was placed in front of an extraordinary situation, who made a choice, and who didn't wait that society judge her, but condemned herself, heavily, so she went away from the life, locked up herself in a silence as in most terrible of the punishments."

Thank you for posting this.
Sigh..It is difficult for everybody, the mother, the child, the family, and us the society.
At the beginning from the job interview scenes I could not know what happened to the son, but when the little kid picked up the paper and gave to Lea then I could guess.

[–] Shefhammer 16 years ago

"Fourthly, it's an easy way out to make the viewers like the character."

Not much of an argument when this comes at about minute 119 of the 120 minute running time. We've long ago made our minds up whether or not we like the character or not. I think what was brilliant about this is that we like her despite the fact we know she killed her son and we don't know why.

Officially the best film website on the web: http://www.myfilmvault.com

[–] busterbboy 16 years ago

I also was really disappointed by the ending.
NO WAY would a jury sentence a woman to 15 years unless they had reasonable grounds for her motivation or sanity. And then there would be an autopsy...medical records... and statements about her character from her family. She was not set up as the murdering type.
It is just too incredible that she would have kept the illness to herself - WHY? - and whilst I can believe in a mercy killing and the consequent guilt, I cannot understand how the police, the jury, and her family and friends would judge her capable of motiveless murder.
I think the film suffered as a result, it was too sentimental.
For me, it would have been better if she had greater culpability - for example, she had contracted AIDS from one of many casual, drug-riddled affairs, and passed this on to her son whilst remaining only a carrier herself. Then, discovering this, her shameful and unspeakable secret would have more plausibility. And the universal acceptance of her guilt.
Or maybe she had inadvertantly murdered her child - for example, she had given him sedatives because he kept her awake all night, and had reacted catastrophically...
These are just suggestions off the top of my head, but as if is for me the film loses credibility by trying to make the 'revelation' too much of a twist, and by making the heroine morally impeccable.

It's a pity, as I was enjoying the film up to the revelation (which was fairly predictable)

Did anybody see 'Ironweed' - two people's lives are ruined forever when the drunken father accidentally drops his new baby, killing it.

[–] Corner_House_guest 16 years ago

She felt she had culpability as it was a genetically transferred syndrome that Michel inherited from her.
The cop killed himself, he was depressed by his divorce and only seeing his daughter at weekends but he dealt with criminals on parole whose life stories should have given him perspective on his own troubles.
Problem is that when suicidal thoughts enter the mind of someone with a handgun then having a quick method readily available does mean they are more likely to go through with it. Amongst US police departments its known as eating your gun eg Captain Faure ate his gun.

[–] lovelifegivelife 16 years ago

A lot of people here seem to think she should have committed a crime of passion, a sudden turn of anger hitting her son and him dying from this or the idea of a reaction to sedatives because he keeps her awake, for me these are too easily excused, they are momentary mistakes which people could too easily relate to and feel sympathy for. You may say the same of a mercy killing but Ithink people's reaction is different when it is that of a child. People understand when elderly relatives are euthanised to end their suffering, often it is the ill person that makes the decision as they have had their life and have made a mature decision that they don't want to suffer any more. I'm not sure the public would see the 'mercy' killing of a child the same way. Our initial reaction would be one of 'Mother kills child, how could she!'

We don't know how the media reacted to news of a mother killing her child either, they could have made it a witch-hunt that blinkered the views of everyone around. And from what we are told whilst on trial Juliette offered no defence for herself, just standing motionless in the dock. From what I can recall I don't remember it ever being said how advanced the childs illness was and it seemed to me that Juliette kept this to herself, she knew the fate of her child and couldn't bring herself to see him like that. She probably knew that her husband and others would talk her out of this decision so she made it herself without telling anyone. This may be something she regretted and she had to live with it so punished herself for the ulimate sin of infanticide by letting the world vilify her as a child-killer.

I know some have said that the illness would have been discovered, and I have no experience of French autopsy procedure so feel free to correct me, but if the child had been killed and the mother simply said she did it (and wanted to be punished for it so offered no excuse for herself) would the authorities necessarily have gone looking for an illness, would they simply have looked for the drug that was used to kill him and just accepted that as an open and shut case, job done, a childs killer has been caught and will be punished, the police have done their job in the eyes of the public. Presenting this to a jury they would see it as a cold hearted, calculated killing, not a momentary lapse where she took one fateful swing at her child but a premeditated killing. Lock her up and throw away the key.

Ultimately you have to bear in mind the direction of the narrative and the purpose of this film. As someone mentioned above, this is likened to The WOodsman, where we are presented with someone who has committed one of the most dispicable crimes possible, the killing of their own child. We aren't told how she did it, we aren't told why. We are left to our own devices to make up our minds about her, can we feel sympathy for someone who killed their own child (even if we suspect there may be more to it), do we want her to rebuild her life, to be accepted back in to society?

In a way the film says a lot about human nature. Look at Luc, he never wants there to be a reason for the killing, he just accepts that she killed her own child, how can she be trusted with his children. Her own family turn their back on her, pretending she never existed. From how the story is presented nobody tried to help her, to sympathise with her and find out why, all they cared about was that she did it.

Perhaps the ending does seem a little too 'neat' but maybe that's why the explanation is left until the final seconds of the film, if we were told at the start, of half way through then it would be too easy to sympathise with her, the narrative would be too straight forward, society would be too accepting of this poor mother who only saved a child from pain and misery. The experiment of judging an audiences perception of a child killer would be over before it started.

Well done for getting all the way through this post.

[–] Corner_House_guest 16 years ago

Many women kill their own child due to post natal depression, anger, desperation. Which is why way back in 1923 a Conservative government passed the Infanticide Act which removed the mandatory death sentence from such cases and viewed the mother as someone who needed help rather than the stress of a capital trial then imprisonment.

[–] sonofindiandelta 15 years ago

-post natal depression that what I assumed until the end

[–] rod775 16 years ago

GREAT film, no matter what the plot points are.....

Believe it or not, I had a feeling that Juliette committed a 'mercy' killing from the start. Don't ask me how I knew, (maybe because I have watched hundreds of thousands of movies in 55 years), but the plot point that she had killed her child because he was ill did NOT have any influence on how much I enjoyed this movie.

A CLASSIC. KST deserves many accolades for her superb performance. No wonder this film has been showing here in San Francisco for months. She is just plain wonderful.

[–] Danielle2001 16 years ago

I agree and I would have been ok not knowing why ,in fact it would have been great not knowing (just like in the movie "cache").That kind of unresolves ending upset number of people who want some kind of resolution in a movie but a film with no ending leaves you perplexe and forever wondering.it lingers inside of you for the longest time (like David Lynch movies)the film is more about the character of Juliette and her acceptance by society. It's more about love and forgiveness.
there is a detail though that I would like to have some insight about. in a conversation her sister Lea mention that she adopted the two little girls and Juliette ask: is that because of what I did? her sister noded but Lea does not know what she did at that point. so why would it cause her to adopt.Even if she thought Juliette killed her son for an unknown reason why would she not want to have children herself. it suggests that she already knew about the reason and was afraid of some passed on genetic disease. I am a little confused about that, maybe I missed something. what do you think?

[–] rowmorg 16 years ago

Not so, busterboy. For example, in the 1990s a Canadian farmer who compassionately put his daughter out of her very low quality of life received a sentence of 25 years and actually served 10 of them. See here:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/latimer/

[–] PVarjak 16 years ago

I largely agree with you that we come to like Juliette, even if we don't know what exactly happened. We see her act with integrity, so we come to admire and like her. That said, I did suspect something other than a straightforward murder of her child. I can't say I figured out euthanasia, but I did figure something (perhaps even that it was a legitimate accident for which she blamed herself.) Probably because I like KST too much to want to envision her as a murderer.

[–] alisdairgordon 16 years ago

Psychic goat ( and others) - I completely agree. When I was discussing this with friends, I even used the same comparison with Kevin Bacon's character in 'the Woodsman'.

As someone has pointed out, there is absolutely no way she would ever have got 15 years for a killing like this. I used to be a criminal lawyer (in Scotland) and well remember a case I did a while back where my client only got one year! And that case had fewer mitigating circumstances than the story in the film. There is absolutely no way the true story wouldn't have come out. The case would have been thoroughly investigated both by prosecution and defence.

Why couldn't the writer have trusted us to deal with a character who might have done something absolutely heinous a long time ago, and who might have been seen by the audience to have been more than 'just' the worse thing she ever did?

Like several others, I felt the final 10-15 minutes absolutely made a mockery of what had preceded it, and I felt completely manipulated.

[–] busterbboy 16 years ago

Alisdairgordon, I agree - the ending was a cop-out that, for me, spoiled an otherwise fine film.
Why did they have to make her into a suffering saint?

As it was, there was no precedent in her character to make her own parents believe her capable of murdering her own child, without any reason. And her friends? Colleagues?

Does the script seriously expect us to believe that she lived in total isolation, never spoke to anybody, never took her child to any kind of doctor, just made this horrific decision on her own possibly hasty judgement. Didn't she tell her husband - the father of the child - that there was a problem?
Or did she simply act on a hunch, conduct some private tests, then kill her child immediately?

Sorry, that's rubbish. It wouldn't matter if this were a minor point, but as the whole film builds towards this revelation - it DOES matter.

[–] Corner_House_guest 16 years ago

She does say she threw Michel a party at the green house when he was so ill he was hardly able to move. Strange the husband didnt notice nor their neighbours his schoolmates etc.

[–] AcademyAwardWinningMe 16 years ago

I understand why people call it a cop-out, but frankly, the movie isn't about a woman who goes crazy for a minute and kills her son. It's about a woman who did something she thought was right, then let the grief of that moment take over her life. Had she really killed her son in a fit of rage, it would have been easier to understand her guilt and pain. What's more interesting is that we cannot completely understand WHY she feels guilty, and yet her feelings of remorse are so suffocating. It actually makes the movie more interesting, I think, to have the character be so wracked with guilt over something we say is generally acceptable than to have her feel guilty over something we can all understand -- especially because the latter emotional experience just doesn't fit the character. It's also far less sensationalistic.

"Don't lets ask for the moon... We have the stars"

[–] circus14 16 years ago

But you are talking about another film here, aren't you? Yes I did saw that euthanasia was the most possible reason as soon as I found out that she was a doctor but still it did not ruin it for me. It is a story about a person letting her life be ruined by grief. I thought it was excellent as such.

If someone got into a rage that would make them kill their child they would not be in prison but in psychiatric hospital and frankly I rather watch this than a film about a mentally disturbed person. Not because I do not appreciate films on madness but because they are more removed from real life. With this film you can empathize and think that you might do something similar in the situation but I think there are very few who went from rage to child murder.

---I don't know enough to be incompetent.---

[–] tim-downie 16 years ago

I don't think it is unbelievable that she was a medic who euthanaised her sick child. I do find it unbelievable that there was no autopsy evidence brought at the trial. When any child dies in such circumstances there will be an inquest and an autopsy. A fatal disease that is identifiable from blood analysis would be picked up in an autopsy and presented at the inquest. So any trial against the mother would have brought up that the child had a fatal illness.

Given this I find much of the plot resolution unbelievable (eg that the sister didn't know her nephew was sick).

This is a shame because the acting, the character investigation and the atmosphere very good and the general plot (ie the long term ramifications of infanticide) very intersting and challenging.

[–] mustard_monkey 16 years ago

"A fatal disease that is identifiable from blood analysis would be picked up in an autopsy and presented at the inquest"

There are many, many different types of analysis that can be run on blood, and in many cases to detect a disease you would have to know what you were looking for. It is highly unlikely and probably not even possible that they would have run every possible kind of blood analysis.

But in response to the main argument of this thread; like the Director said, it might have been interesting to write a film about a woman who killed her child in a fit of rage or something, but that's not what this film is about. I get the feeling the writer started out with the idea of a woman who euthanised her child and wrote it from there. Not every film has to be about whether you can guess the ending, or what would be the most exciting or thrilling situation. This one is more about the characters and they way they deal with the situation they are in. Perhaps if you watch it again when you won't be trying to second guess the film this will come across more.

[–] Chris_Docker 16 years ago

An autopsy is usually only carried out if there are suspicious circumstances. If a woman kidnaps her son and kills him and admits the murder and refuses to explain why I think the sentence is believable. But the whole film takes things that we would rather not believe and makes them believable - which is part of its triumph.

http://comments.imdb.com/user/ur0064493/comments-index?order=date&; summary=off&start=0

[–] phenry-8 16 years ago

People may not have noticed because she kidnapped the child (she does say this in the film). We do not know how long she kept him for.

As for the autopsy - we don't know what she did to the body. If it were several weeks before the body was found, it would be beyond an autopsy that could detect something like leukemia I would have thought ('though I am not doctor.) And why would a pathologist look for such a disease when presented with such a prima facia case?

But I do agree with you - it would have been more interesting if she killed in a moment of mental instability rather than out of mercy.

[–] bronzescag 16 years ago

I found it hard to believe that her sister wouldn't know the circumstances after all these years. And I agree with the autopsy point - the child's debilitating illness would have definitely been discovered and documented. Any competent prosecutor would have figured out the mother's state of mind and taken that into consideration. The conviction and trial transcript would have been available for the sister to access years ago. It would not have been hard to put two and two together. She also used a drug on the child that was highly unlikely for a non-medical pro to have access to. You don't just "put your child to sleep" for no rhyme or reason. I loved the film and found all the performances powerful, but the final revelation was too much to believe.

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] chansamu 16 years ago

Juliette's life begins when the movie ends.

One of the best endings I've ever seen.

"Be it a rock or a grain of sand, in water they sink as the same." - Oldboy

[–] jeannyvere 16 years ago

I agree that an autopsy isn't very logical in these circumstances. There has to be a reason to perform it. Still, I have a problem with the fact that no one knew about the boy's illness. The moment Julliette decided to run some tests (before he was taken away from his everyday life) she obviously noticed abnormalities; why would she bother doing them otherwise? And if she would've seen them, others would as well!

[–] cornelia123 16 years ago

Spoilers!

I agree with the OP that it wasn't realistic. Nevertheless, it had a beautiful performance by Kristin Scot Thomas and her character was quite intersting, in the sense that you didn't know why she was in jail, and then when you discover why, you realise that she herself, as part of the grieving process, put herself there and believed she deserved to be shunned by society.

It's a shame about the police guy though. Maybe that's what shook her out of her self pity, the realisation that life goes on and that others suffer and that she could have found a kindred spirit - and a possible redemption for both of them - if it wasn't because of her own self punishment.

In all the film wasn't perfect by any means, but it was good enough imo if only for Kristin Scott Thomas' wonderful subtle performance. 6/10

[–] busterbboy 16 years ago

A mother killing her child would be thoroughly investigated, even if she had kidnapped the child and pleaded guilty.
Would her family, friends and colleagues not be interviewed about possible motives? WHY would they assume she was guilty of the most terrible crime? What was in her character to let them accept that, and reject her?
Surely somebody would have noticed the signs of terminal disease - and if there were none, was she not rather hasty in putting her child to death? People recover from cancers, AIDS etc.

For me, this was a major plot hole that ruined an otherwise fine film. I could not achieve 'willing suspension of disbelief'.

[–] randybyrd-1 16 years ago

Of course there would have been an autopsy and a reason to perform it. There is a dead child and to prosecute her for murder you would have to establish a cause of death. I'm an attorney in the US and maybe France is different but I can't imagine a country on Earth that doesn't require an autopsy where you have asuspected muder victim.