Il y a longtemps que je t'aime is an allegory about loss and humanity. It is about unmentionable realities, about profound loss, about how one can decide to abandon ones-self and stop living. After 15 years in prison, without any visits and having had to learn to live with the worst of losses, Juliette (Kristin Scott Thomas) is released. A beautiful tale about how the mysterious and absolutely hermetically sealed off Juliette is changed by and makes her mark on the people around her when she enters their lives.

Léa (Elsa Zylberstein), who desperately wants to recover the sister she was forced to abandon years ago, asks Juliette to live with her and her family. Léa's husband Luc (Serge Hazanavicius) is worried about the whole situation and does not trust Juliette with his young daughter. They live together with Luc's father (Jean-Claude Arnaud) who has been left mute as the result of a stroke; another silent character. And then there is Michel (Laurent Grévill), a friend of Léa and Luc's, who knows loss and understands that some things need to be silenced. We slowly learn more about why Juliette was disowned by her parents, how Léa was made to think of her as dead, and why she spent 15 years in prison.

Juliette's relationship with Léa forces her to speak about the truth behind her past and we begin to understand the depth behind her profound silence whilst Michel gives her the space she needs to be able to grow. We watch her as she learns to open herself and begin to live again. Il y a longtemps que je t'aime is about how sometimes it is necessary to run away from words. It is a fairytale (rather than a piece of social realism) in that it is not a film about reinsertion or reform, and because Juliette is lucky to find two guardian angels in the figures of Léa and Michel.

It can be criticised on the grounds that Juliette does finally break her silence, at least to Léa and to the omniscient viewer, and some of the details of her past are a little unnecessarily contrived and adapted to suit the film's focus. Although this is not done out of character, had she never spoken about the past, the film would have changed tone completely. As it is, it becomes an emotional journey of change and discovery, and provokes a deeper level of sympathy from the viewer. Had she never opened herself, the film would have been a different excercise more focused on the abysms which separate people and the need for trust not based on understanding but on acceptance. Despite its emotionally charged content, Philippe Claudel's subtle and coherent direction stops the narrative from falling prey to easy clichés and extremes.

Kristin Scott Thomas is just wonderful as Juilette and proves, yet again, her ability and versatility as an actress; this is possibly the best role of her career to date. She breathes life into the role of a ghost who is trying to return to the world of the living, and gives both strength and gentleness to her character. (The world is topsy-turvy; nominated for best actress in 2009's BAFTA awards, Thomas lost to Kate Winslet's far overrated performance in The Reader.) The rest of the cast is also very strong, and it is worth highlighting Elsa Zylberstein as Léa and Laurent Grévill as Michel.