For years, I've heard glowing praise of this movie....now that I've seen it, I feel the praise is largely undeserved. The movie gets off to a bad start: It's unclear (at least from the subtitled version I saw) where the heck the characters are. It's obviously Europe and some kind of World War II era camp, but that's all I could glean....And in the early scenes with Miou Miou, where her first husband gets shot, it wasn't clear who was doing the shooting and/or why. According to the description on this site, it was the "resistance," whatever that means....(to be fair: perhaps most Europeans in 1983 understood the history without needing reference books, but this U.S. home video viewer in 2002 would have appreciated a bit more historical context)As for the rest of the film....Slow, slow, slow. And with a lot of extraneous elements that never seemed to go anywhere. Frankly, I was hoping for more romance between the two women, which you never really see. You just get Isabelle Huppert's husband being angry all the time. And for the record, I didn't like the way the Miou-Miou character kept insulting her young son. None of these characters were particularly likeable, not even Isabelle Huppert. The ugliness of the characters detracted from my enjoyment of this, too.I suppose this was considered really "avant garde" or something, in terms of subject matter, back in 1983, when it was released. But today it just falls really flat. A disappointment.

This is a wonderful film, the story of two women whose lives gradually become entwined that each can fully bloom. The story of their meeting their husbands, becoming disillusioned with them and then discovering each other is a lovely story. There are problems with the sub-titles in the DVD, so if you were to rely wholly on what you read, the film would not work as well. Overall I enjoyed this film very much. A lovely story of discovery and awakening, with much left to the viewer's imagination, but all the details add to the whole.

I wasn't sure where this movie was going at first, but as it picks up the pace there is little doubt as to whom the nous in the title refers.When Huppert says "Je tu manque" (pardon my French it is I hope close) "I miss you" she might as well be declaring the love that is boiling out of her. But there is the problem of the spouses to be resolved, and the children. Needless to say all is reconciled and true love triumphs.I have seen this movie at least three times now and love it more each time. There is a tenderness between most of the characters (one is a lout pure and simple) but the others all strive to reconcile who they are to to events that enfold them. Their struggles hit all of the right notes (with the possible exception of a very steamy sex scene on a train which just doesn't work for me)It is a tear jerker at times, but a beautiful tear jerker. and so I always did like those forties movies.

Subtitles are unevenly paced, often uncoupled with dialogue, in the version I saw. I had to rewind frequently and sometimes use the pause button to catch everything.