All Is Forgiven (2007)

All Is Forgiven is engrossing, yet it is only after it is over and there is time to think about it that the film starts to really seem dazzling, as an unfolding portrait of loss that leaves us with many questions.

The atmosphere the director creates, once fully breathed in, has an emotional gravity that becomes devastating as it settles.

Perhaps the most persuasive aspect of this hopeful parable of failure is the way casting, acting, script, and camerawork conspire to usher us into an immediately believable world which is observed with a painterly eye yet never seems staged.

Writer/director Mia Hansen-Love’s first feature, All is Forgiven, a keenly observed study in intimacy that has the rhythm and feel of real life, announces the arrival of an intriguing sensibility. Technically accomplished and finely acted without artifice by a talented ensemble cast, it’s an astutely written, mature work in its content, understated, naturalistic style and sensitive rendering of complex emotion.

It's one of those rare films where the title has real meaning, one that grows in power the moment the credits roll.

Hansen-Løve largely focuses on how, despite the great distance and difference of perspectives between the two, a chance of forgiveness and reconciliation is still there; that the passing of time can still heal the wounds these two have. And this is what eventually gives the film tenderness and sense of hope, despite its tragic premise.

While its succession of emotionally loaded moments never crystallize into a vivid whole, the strong performances and highly effective use of music should put audiences in a forgiving mood.