Amour (2012)
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Amour Movie Review
Amour is a 2012 French romantic drama film directed by Michael Haneke and starring Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant. It’s a good, but depressing movie.
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“Things will go on,
and then one day it will all be over“
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Octogenarian couple George and Anne’s happy life comes to a halt, when Anne suffers from a stroke and George must do everything possible to help her recover. This is one exceedingly depressing and dark movie, which I guess was necessary for this particular story, but still it needed a bit more light in this very dark tunnel. Needless to say, it’s not exactly ‘Wrinkles’ as that film was so much better and tonally more interesting.
Amour benefits from some very strong moments throughout. Of course, the unforgettable pillow suffocation sequence is best remembered from this film, and for a good reason as it’s so damn horrifying and heartbreaking to watch. I also loved the romantic scenes between the two, especially those early moments where the two spoke more, and led some very sweet conversations. The pigeon metaphor was interesting and it gave the film cinematic ambition.
Jean-Louis Trintignant is excellent in this film, and he should have gotten more attention and not just his co-star because he is also very commendable and powerful from beginning to end. But of course Emmanuelle Riva is fantastic, very believable in her tough role and I wish she got an Oscar instead of Jennifer Lawrence back in 2013. Isabelle Huppert is pretty good per usual, but her character isn’t all that important to the film.
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What I didn’t like about this movie is the pacing. The film is very long, and it felt like it given the very slow, very deliberate pacing in many of its slowest parts. I personally would have cut some of those parts, and it would have flowed much better. The direction from Michael Haneke is solid, though, and the dialogue is excellent. The emotion is definitely felt as well. I just wish it was more engaging to watch because to me it wasn’t all that involving. Amour ended up winning Best Foreign Language Film and it was a solid choice by the Academy for that year.
Amour is definitely a very dark, depressing movie, but it’s also quite memorable in a couple of very difficult to watch and striking scenes. The two main actors both delivered tremendous performances, and the dialogue and Haneke’s direction are also both very good. I just wish the pacing was better and the runtime shorter as the film ended up being quite uninvolving.
