The greatest foreign film I have seen as well as one of the best movies ever. The reason is because the film progress very fluid like because of the story and great performances with a little bit of Johnny Depp added. Most people who don't like this movie don't because they don't understand it. Luckily, the director explains key points (in the featurette).Also, the female lead is so likable and adorable that every guy wishes he had her as a wife. Also, there are many turning points that make the movie not be predictable. The main reason it is so interesting is because it shows what life is like in Europe. Veyr interesting movie. Highly recommended!

I walked out of this film after fifty minutes and would have been better off had I left after ten minutes.This film provides an example that the French are as capable of making films as bad as mainstream American trash. Here we focus on married couples, one of which--an Indian couple--hardly receives any attention because they represent a still-loving pair after fifteen or so years of marriage.Instead, the remaining husbands, Vincent and Georges, plus their single friend Fred, are the focus of attention. All of them are sexist louts only concerned with talking about bedding women and discussing women's T&A. Fred is a stereotype: the ugly guy you would think no woman would look at twice but who is, in fact, juggling a string of women. But then none of the male or female characters is developed in any depth here.It's hard to believe a film would waste time on such guys. Their wives would be better off divorced from these sexist pigs and their children probably would be better off without them, too. The lifestyle these people are shown living is remarkably like that of too many Americans seen in mainstream films--arguing with each other, spending too much time in front of a TV set, overeating, and overweight. Of course, in French films, there's plenty of smoking, but it often looks chic. Not here, where Gabrielle is shown cooking in one scene with a cigarette dangling out of her lips. Ugh! Even the apartments these people live in are ugly. Gabrielle's kitchen could use the services of a good cleaning company.The narrative line of the film is fractured. In the opening scene, Vincent comes into a bar and picks up his own wife, whom two other men are also trying to pick up. At this point, we don't understand that Vincent and Gabrielle are married. This makes for a very confusing opening to say the least.Elsewhere in the film, similar chronology tricks are employed. I hadn't the least interest in the characters and was be-damned if I was going to try to figure out the fractured chronology. As in the atrocious "The Constant Gardener," the in-your-face technique (swish pans and rack focusing in particular here) seem an attempt to distract viewers from the humorless, lousy story.At one point, Johnny Depp has a cameo moment with Gabrielle in a record store. Depp looks awful, as if he needed a shower, a shave, and a haircut as well as the services of the makeup people on the set. I understand that in a later scene, Depp reappears as a client to whom Gabrielle, a real estate agent, shows an apartment. And in that scene in an elevator going up to that apartment Gabrielle and the nameless character Depp plays at last have sex. Ho-hum. I obviously didn't miss a thing by walking out when I did.During the fifty minutes I was in the audience at the 19th Street Theatre in Allentown, PA, I heard no laughter at all from an audience of about 70 people. During a food fight scene (Can you believe it?) between Gabrielle and Vincent, I heard a few titters of laughter, that sounded like an embarrassed response, as if the titters came from people who were asking themselves, "What are we doing watching something like this?" I couldn't understand why the entire audience didn't arise en masse and leave the theatre.

As much as one would like to respond to Ivan Attal's films, one is puzzled about his choice of material. M. Attal seems to be at the center of all his films, and that, perhaps, works against him, as it is one way to lose grasp on the subject that he, as a director is trying to present. Basically this is a film about duplicity and deceit. The cliché about the sexual French man is perpetuated here as we get to know Vincent, M. Attal's character.If you haven't seen the film, perhaps you would like to stop here.At the beginning of the picture we are taken to a club where we meet Gabrielle, a slim and elegant woman, who is being invited to a drink by the fellow to her left. At that same time Vincent suddenly appears at her side who ends up being rewarded in taking her home. We had no warning that they are a couple.Vincent is seen lounging with two close friends, Georges, the hotel manager, and his coworker, Fred. Inevitably, when guys talk, the topic almost invariably is about women one, or perhaps, all of them have managed to take to bed. Fred, the homely one of this trio, seems to be the luckiest one. He can book afternoon and evening trysts. Our conclusion is either he knows how to please, or is enormously endowed. Gabrielle and Vincent are an unhappily married couple. They are living together in the same apartment, but they are miles apart in mostly everything. There doesn't seem to be any love between them after a few years. Vincent loves to do practical jokes to both his son and to his wife. What Vincent doesn't tell his wife, or his buddies is that he is having his own love affair with a masseuse. Their passionate encounters reveal an incredible passion. One wonders how Vincent finds time from his job and from Gabrielle to be with wife and mistress, although Viagra might be one solution.The only ray of hope in the film is when Gabrielle, shopping for music at the Virgin Megastore stops to listen a sample CD. As she is enjoying the song, a mysterious and handsome man stops at the same listening station to sample the same song. He disappears and she goes after him, but nothing happens. Then, at the end, she has an appointment to show an apartment and who happens to be the would be tenant? You guessed it! They are seen on the tiny elevator going up and up into a heavenly ride.This is a film about miscommunication and one dimensional characters. Charlotte Gainsbourg, is always a welcome presence to any films. She projects intelligence in everything she does. Ivan Attal, as an actor is good. The friends Alain Chabat and Alain Cohen, as Georges and Fred do a fairly decent job. Emmanuelle Seigner doesn't have much to do. Angie David and Aurore Clement play Vincent's mistress and her mother. Claude Berri and Anouk Aimee are seen briefly as Vincent's parents without any justification, or perhaps, M. Attal is trying to show us that his parents by staying together for so many years are bored with one another as we don't see them exchange a word, or much less any loving glances as we watch them having dinner in a fancy restaurant.Johnny Depp is seen effectively in his two scenes. He doesn't say much, only a couple of words, but he makes an impact that none of the other characters made during the film.

This is the third film from triple-threat (Writer-Director-Actor) Yvan Attal and arguably his best. Once again he has cast his real-life partner (they have just had a child) Charlotte Gainsbourg as his screen wife and cast fellow triple-threat wda Alain Chabat as his best friend. Whilst Vincent (Attal) and Gabrielle (Gainsbourg) have a seemingly ideal marriage Georges (Chabat) and Nathalie (Emmanuelle Seigner) are more tempestuous and Nathalie's nagging is ever present. Both couples have a child hence the title, They Were Married And Had Many Children, which is also the French equivalent of the fairy-tale ending 'and so they lived happily ever after'. The third man, Fred (Alain Cohen) is single and has no shortage of girls. This is the broad outline. The twist, such as it is requires Fred to envy the married state, Vincent to lead a double life that fools even Georges and Fred and Georges, the logical one to cheat on a nagging wife to be faithful. Most of the five principals are virtually unknown outside France - Chabat appeared in 'Le Gout des Autres', Attal in 'Bon Voyage' - but Anouk Aimee who plays Vincent's mother is certainly known if only for 'A Man And A Woman' whilst Berri, of course, directed 'Jean de Florette' and 'Manon des Sources'. Attal has done a workmanlike job of exploring male bonding - the men spend hours playing football - and precarious relationships and it's the kind of film that can find an audience abroad. 7/10