Another quiet indie drama that went under the radar, its unfortunate really because these low key films have some of the best cinematography out there. A famous modern war photographer, who uses pictures of conflict to express the damage of warfare, is killed in a car accident. The remaining family members must go through her unpublished work for a final article, to which becomes more of a personal journey for them all. Essentially it's another drama about grief, an all too familiar concept that is completely saturated with depressing dramas. This one is no different, but it's execution sets it apart from the basic example. Each family member goes through grief in their own different way. The husband remains tranquil and yearns to communicate more with his sons. The eldest son cheats on his wife with his ex-girlfriend. The youngest son shuts himself off from the world in solitude, continually playing video games and being apart from others. It didn't feel artificial, in fact I thought these characters were perhaps some of the most realistic I've seen in a drama of this type for quite some time. Then we find out that the wife also isn't exactly perfect, and so we have ourselves a broken imperfect family. The problem with that, it's not exactly exciting. Various scenes of just characters staring into the distance as internal narration takes over. A decision that perhaps over stylised the narrative, to a point where it felt too glossy and superficial. I wanted the plot to delve deeper into their emotions, a few more outbursts and some powerhouse scenes. Alas, the tone remained calm throughout which I can also appreciate. Director Trier does utilise a competent cast to deliver the emotional captivation. Huppert's small screen time felt everlasting. Eisenberg gave another understated performance. Druid surprisingly held the film together. A novelistic approach that just can't quite reach the heights of sophistication.

Attracted by a good cast, Gabriel Byrne, Isabelle Huppert, David Strathairn, I checked this film out of the library. Not since 'Elivra Madigan' in the 60's have I endured such a boring film. After 20 minutes of suffering through long pauses and slow responses between characters speaking to each other, I fast forwarded to the end. Not only did the pauses of at least two seconds, which in a conversation is an eternity, especially as one character is totally immobile while the other fiddles with her hair, grimaces, puts her hand up to her mouth, lips tremble and whatever else she learned at the school of bad acting.I enjoy foreign language films and am happy with a slow pace if it engrosses me, but this did not hold my attention for even five minutes. If they had trimmed the conversational pauses, and the characters standing stock still for no reason, they could have lopped an hour off the film, or at least filled in more dialog. I should have been warned by the blurb on the box which spoke of the dysfunctional family of a deceased woman each trying to reconcile their emotions and deal with her death in their own way. I will know better next time. When did all this hair chewing, hand wringing, voice trembling and verbal stumbling, or rigid immobility, begin to pass for acting? I watch films of the 40's and 50's which had none of this, yet it seems everywhere these days. The high school girl unable to read words of more than one syllable (or was it more than three letters) without stumbling as the camera stayed on her for five minutes. Was this a school for developmentally handicapped teenagers? The other thing which annoyed the heck out of me, but this may be my age, was the apologetic father who let his younger son get away with foul mouthed insolence when he should have smacked that out of him a long time ago. It was not Gene's fault that his son was a brat. I never want to see another film where parents take the blame for the bad behavior of their children.My overall opinion: a pretentious time waster.

I found it very hard to follow this movie. Slow moving, out of sync. Who is that character? Is it past or present? I fast forwarded through a lot of scenes that were not necessary to film like long walks and drives. The youngest son, was he ever told of his mom's suicide? Was it a suicide? It made me feel uncomfortable throughout.

A multi-nationally produced film, especially you can call it a European product, but an English language film that takes place in the New York. The story of a husband and two sons of the famed war photographer who recently died in a car crash. So the film is focused to tell how they are going to cope with their loss, especially the little brother who has differences with his father. They all kind of drifted away from each other, but without an alternate they have to come together to go through it.This is not a usual mourning theme, but sometimes I felt they forgot they're in mourning. Because the narration quickly shifts to various topics like the birth of a child, a new affair and trying to impress the girl whom the boy has a crush. So with all this, I completely witnessed a different type of film than what it had said. That's not bad, just a refreshing and with constant moving back and forth in in time to disclose some key events.Mainly the portrayal splits into three to cover those three family members and each has its own specialty. Something like a film for older people, middle-aged and teens, all the these contents smartly joined together. Apart from the good show from the cast, the director did his best as usual, but this is not up to the par with his other works. For a watch this film definitely would do good. Since it's not a Hollywood, you won't have to worry about American film clichés, because it was developed much better and ends better.6/10