Life Is a Long Quiet River (1988)

Redundant and unnecessary.

Powerful

Absolutely the worst movie.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Meet the Groseille family, every upscale parent's living nightmare and no doubt the shabbiest collection of trash outside of a John Waters film. Compare them to the Le Quesnoy household on the other side of the tracks: respectable, comfortably privileged, and soon to have their upper crust complacency shattered when a long-lost son, raised by the wayward Groseilles, returns home to corrupt his true family.The film is a mixed bag, at best a mildly amusing social satire mocking the pretensions of a bourgeois yuppie lifestyle, but it's never clear if the prodigal son's lack of class is genetic or environmental: in other words, is the kid rotten because of his blue-collar upbringing or his white-collar breeding? The scenario also lacks the mean streak this kind of story needs. Except for the exploding car in the pre-credit prologue (a tremendous hook, barely acknowledged afterward) the film is perhaps too faithful to its title: long and quiet instead of short and nasty.

Etienne Chatiliez has produced an excellent film. His analysis of a part of French society (snobbish, ultra catholic and well-thinking) is absolutely realist. You will laugh, smile or hate if you are like them!

At last, this little gem of a film is available on DVD (only in French, no subtitles, but it is, in any case, a difficult film to enjoy other than in French), together with 2 hours of additional interviews.This film is a wicked little satire on the differences (and, below the surface, the similarities) between the bourgeois LeQuesnoy family and the wastrel Groseille family. The artifice used is the switching of two children at birth by the unhappy mistress of the gynaecologist.For many of the actors and the director, this was their first film, providing a stepping stone for greater things. But "La Vie est un Long Fleuve Tranquille" should not be missed. Many of its little jokes became catchphrases in the France of the eighties and early nineties, so cruelly apt were they.And do not miss Etienne Chatiliez's later films, particularly "Tatie Danielle" et "Le Bonheur est dans le Pre". You might not enjoy this film - some people clearly haven't. But I recommend you make the effort to decide for yourself. It will be worth it.

This could have been done WAY better. This is the story: Two babies are switched at birth, one from an upper middleclass family and one from a lower class family, because of a jealous nurse. Twelve years later the mystery is discovered and the upper class family buys their kid back. This lame plot isn't worked out at all, and some minor storylines are just forgotten near the end. By the way, what the hell was the meaning of the very last scene ???? There are some serious things wrong with this movie.Acting isn't very good either, but it isn't bad. Benoît Magimel, the kid who plays Maurice, did some nice things, and Jean-Brice Van Keer was good too. But then again, some other people didn't act at all: Daniel Gelin (the doctor), Patric Bouchitey (the priest), ...Mostly I don't say anything about the music, but this time it really beats everything. HORRIBLE! TASTELESS! OFF-KEY! UnbelievableOf course there are some good things about this movie, especially how the two families are brought into screen and how one family falls apart when someone from the other family comes to live with them. But in general, this is a huge stinker. 4/10