Rent Suite Francaise (2014)

Beautifully photographed wartime romance, set in a version of France where everyone speaks English - Suite Francaise review by RP

It's a wartime romance with added Germans. Err, that's it.

What makes this different from so many similar films are a number of factors:

- it's set in France, in a small town occupied by the Germans

- the central character falls for a German officer

- no-one speaks French!

- the story of how the book came to be written is quite moving. Look it up on Wikipedia.

The central character is played by Michelle Williams who I found too wimpish for the role. Better is Matthias Schoenaerts who plays the German officer - and composer! - she falls for, but best is the always excellent Kristin Scott Thomas as the dominating mother-in-law.

The film is beautifully photographed, the Germans are not just portrayed as black-and-white caricatures and Matthias Schoenaerts' character is cultured but knows his duty - and (of course) ignores it at the so predictable end.

However, I disliked intensely the decision to have the dialogue in English. Yes, the Germans spoke German - but the French spoke perfect English. The film would have worked far better made as a French film, in French. Not only that, but Kristin Scott Thomas speaks the language fluently, having lived there since she was 19.

No bad, just average - but could have been so much better. 3/5 stars.

Mills and Boon with Swastikas - Suite Francaise review by PV

This is basically a writing-by-numbers soppy Mills-and-Boon style girlie fantasy romance, similar to the millions written that millions of women read to escape their dull lives.

It has all the bits: handsome male hero, tick; unhappy pretty young woman who falls in love with her knight in shining armour, tick; disapproval (as in all soapy melodramas) from the family - or, more specifically, a seemingly wicked mother-in-law - tick.

If you want to watch a real quality WWII film series from a German soldier's point of view, then watch 'Generation War - Our Mothers, Our Fathers.'

This is just soapy silly girl romance.

BUT the story of how the book was written - or actually part-written (because the woman who wrote it was dragged off to a concentration camp and killed before she completed it) is fascinating. Dare I say it but without that story - and the discovery and then publication of this 60 years after the war - then this film would never have been made.

Anyway, it's all watchable if you like that sort of thing.

And I had no objections whatsoever to the director's decision to have the Germans speaking German and accented English, but the French speaking fluent English. This is standard practice in drama and theatre. If the French had been speaking French with accents and the Germans too, it could have been more Allo Allo than Mills and Boon, after all...

UNEXPECTEDLY GRIPPING MELODRAMA - Suite Francaise review by Alphaville

This is a deceptively inconsequential little film that sneaks up on you until it grips. In the wrong hands, understated acting and precise direction can render the most exciting story bland, but here it serves to ramp up the tension. Director Saul Dibb sets a perfect tone and leads Matthias Schoenaerts and Michelle Williams (never better) are equally perfect as the German officer and the Frenchwoman (with a faultless English accent!) with whom he is billeted.

This may not be the first film to explore star-crossed relationships in wartime but it's a riveting addition to the genre. Shot entirely on location in France and Belgium, it is a beautiful, subtle, elegant film that has a cinematic aesthetic unusual for a director from a documentary background. Adding to its authenticity is the fact that the story was written at the time, in the 1940s. If the title means nothing to you, it certainly will after the poignant climax and end-titles.