(2008; Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, French) After fifteen years in prison for killing her six-year-old son, Juliette Fontaine (Kristen Scott Thomas) is released, but not from the penitentiary of her guilt.

Her husband who divorced her never saw her again after the trial; in all that time none of her immediate family came to see her. Social services ("I didn't ask for any of this") arranged for her to temporarily reside with her younger sister Lea (Elsa Zylberstein), a professor of literature at the university, who is overjoyed to have her sister back.

Initially the situation is awkward and uncomfortable; Lea's husband Luc (Serge Hazanavicius), a lexicographer, is afraid of having Juliette at home unsupervised with their two adopted Vietnamese daughters. What should they tell the children about Aunt Juliette's long absence and sudden appearance? Luc's father, mute from a stroke, also lives with the couple.

Lea's parents - father dead since 1999 and mother in a nursing home with dementia (of whom Juliette knew nothing) - tried to erase Juliette's existence from her thoughts. The sisters share childhood memories, but so much Lea has forgot.

Juliette must report every other week to her parole officer, Capt Fauré, also divorced, who tells her of his plans to voyage on the Orinoco River; a welfare officer assists with finding employment. After the first prospective employer dismisses her without completing the interview, she accepts an offer of sex from a stranger in a café.

Trained as a physician, Juliette's next application is for a medical secretary's position at the hospital; after getting hired, she's mildly rebuked for being cold and withdrawn. Lea introduces Juliette to her secretive colleague Michel (Laurent Grevill), who sees the world through books but understands pain (showing Juliette Emil Friant's painting in the art museum), having lost his wife ten years earlier; for ten years he'd taught inside a prison.

To family friend Gerard, demanding while drunk to know her past, Juliette delivers a killer line. During her trial, Juliette offered no defense for herself; she remains as silent as Grandpa about what happened to her son Pierre.

Only by opening up can she leave her self-imposed solitary confinement. Lea's two girls help her take the first steps out - teaching the older one to play a tune on the piano, from which the film's title was taken - in director Philippe Claudel's domestic drama and first feature.

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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