This is a drama film, a European one (not just geographically, but in genres) and a 90's one (not just in time, but in style).Over the years, something happened and people just don't make films like that anymore.I find it difficult to explain to people what kind of film this is, because, in the United States, we simply don't have this genre.It is not a big blockbuster film. It is not a big drama film. It is not a romantic comedy or a chick flick. It is not a TV movie. It is not a B-film nor an exploitation one.We cannot pitch this film because we'd be stuck at the "what is it similar to?" stage. I'm not saying "there's nothing like it," but this genre is slowly getting lost.The amazing thing about this film is its subtlety and finesse. If you compare this to modern dramas, the subtlety is not there. Compared to films about artists and performers:Black Swan results in lunacy and death. The Pianist takes place during WWII. Whiplash has a drummer perform covered in blood after a car crash. The Prestige features magic and death. Vinyl, a series about music, features a death and murder investigation for some reason.All these films are getting bigger and bigger, from Gone Girl (murder investigation) to Wolf of Wall Street.It's all larger than life, but it ends up being less than realistic.This film is not like that. It captures life, a slice of time, a story. If we were to place things on a spectrum with real life (let's say 0) on one end and pure fantasy like Avatar on the other (let's give it a 5), most modern films would be closer to fantasy than reality. They'd be around 3 or 4. This film would be 1.Many would see a small cast and a simple story as theatrical, low-quality and bad, but they couldn't be farther from the truth. Big films with giant scenes like Wolf of Wall Street, The Great Gatsby and all the big eye-candy films are closer to theatrical productions than a dialogue-based film with a small cast. It's strange how people watch films with choreographed acting and blocking of large groups synced to music and feel that it's closer to life than smaller, quieter scenes with fewer people.I have nothing against big pictures, I enjoyed all the examples I listed, but this form of art, Un Coeur En Hiver-type films, is lost. Europe seems to have gone the other way, instead of making films, making anti- films with anti-events, anti-dialogues and anti-characters to be the anti-Hollywood. There are more and more films made in Europe where nothing happens, where there is no plot.If Un Coeur En Hiver is a film about a musician's unreciprocated feelings towards her luthier, with a first meeting, escalation, climax and end, a slice in time when their lives intersected, then modern European films would take a subsection of that, perhaps the first meeting, and making it into a whole film. So here we are, we have films with incredibly high stakes (accused of the murder of his wife, Gone Girl) or films where nothing happens (I looked at this woman across the room, she looked back, I finished my cigarette, the end).This film is a must watch. It's a curious "what could've been" for modern cinema.

A typical French movie about love: slow-paced, elegant, thoughtful. Casting, acting, music--all very good. The problem I had with this film is with the central character Stephane whose reserved and detached nature gets old and annoying after a while. Perhaps I was supposed to feel that his persona is mysterious and that's all there's to it; instead, I got an inkling that his character was just a bit too contrived. And why is he always wearing a suit and tie, even to visit relatives? It seriously made me wonder if he sleeps in a suit and tie pajama.By the way, the actress Élisabeth Bourgine who plays Stephane's friend is now on the BBC show Death in Paradise. She still looks great.

I'm not someone who could be easily touched. But this movie was just like a shock to me. The characters, the music and the atmosphere that Sautet has created are beautiful and also fragile-just like in real life. I can't deny that this film showed me a new dimension of my own character-maybe of human character. And about the music ,it awfully fits the movie! Maybe a reason that I'm impressed so much is the music.Ravel is my favorite compositor. But also casting is fabulous.Just like everybody knows even exactly how to breathe. Let me add a sentence from the dialogue which was so impressing for me: There, look at a man touched by grace...Mr. Sautet I am touched by grace.I Thank you.hoping you hear me from paradise or anywhere else ...

The only things worth watching and hearing in this French film are Emmanuelle Beart's face and some of Ravel's violin music, respectively.Otherwise, this is an incredibly boring movie; a very long, drawn out soap opera. It's nothing but people yakking away. The fact national critics rave about this movie is mind-boggling. The film has little offer, even sleaze, which critics love. For those looking at the cover of the DVD box or VHS tape and thinking this might be some kind of erotic French film, forget it. There is no sex nor certainly anything erotic Unfortunately, this is very little worthy of anyone's attention.