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Happily Ever After (2005)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted: 40
Fresh: 23
Rotten:17
Average Rating: 6/10
Consensus: Though this French film features good acting, it lacks the wit and charm one would expect to see.
Runtime: 1 hr 45 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
Box Office: $121,785
Synopsis: Yvan Attal writes, directs, and stars in this meditation on extra-marital affairs. When he and his wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) find they are both attracted to other people, even though they are happily married with a young son, their... Yvan Attal writes, directs, and stars in this meditation on extra-marital affairs. When he and his wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) find they are both attracted to other people, even though they are happily married with a young son, their whole relationship comes under reconsideration. Meanwhile, other couples in midlife explore similar predicaments. [More]
Starring: Yvan Attal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alain Chabat, Emmanuelle Seigner
Starring: Yvan Attal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alain Chabat, Emmanuelle Seigner, Alain Cohen, Anouk Aimée
Director: Yvan Attal
Director: Yvan Attal
Screenwriter: Yvan Attal
Producer: Claude Berri
Reviews for Happily Ever After
Attal taps into that unexpectedness -- the inability of just one person to captain the course of a relationship no matter how hard they try -- and he plays it for all it's worth.
There are a few quality moments, but this fairy tale is far from enchanting.
Whatever points screenwriter/director Attal is trying to make about relationship envy get lost as the marital conflicts become more contrived and shrill.
Attal doesn't illuminate Vincent's motives for straying, and unwisely suggests Vincent's philandering and Gabrielle's daydreaming are somehow morally equivalent.
In a world filled with empty lust and marital discord, Yvan Attal’s wistful comedy is about a guy who loves his wife.
Attal knows that no matter how adult we feel when we say, 'I do,' marriage is all child's play: jealousy, lies and pure, unconditional love. Perplexing, but not a bad option.
There's nothing much wrong with the film; my complaint is that there's nothing much right about it.
The story in the French Happily Ever After is about as exciting as that bland, mistranslated title. But the filmmaking? Very exciting.
Happily Ever After is never as insightful or as funny as Woody at his best. But the film has a fine-tuned approach to human behavior.
A sour, grating comedy-drama about fidelity and infidelity among the Parisian bourgeoisie...certainly won't send you home with a smile on your face.
Attal is creative in crafting cinematic mood, using focus and camera movements to subtly but deftly enhance and even anticipate emotions.
A meditation on the joys and frustrations of monogamy that manages to be a diverting and funny character study at least most of the time.
Whether any of them will live happily ever after is a question you're left pondering long after this challenging film comes to a close.
This is a fetching piece of work, both comical and savvy, and Gainsborough's brisk, forward intelligence rescues Gabrielle from snags of marital self-pity.
If this is director Attal's attempt to dive into the complex world of marriages, he barely swam past the shoreline.
A tremendously provocative date movie for couples brave enough to face each other afterward.
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