great!

This film was beautifully shot and acted but it was also the flattest and dullest film I've seen in years. The concept was very interesting but
the filmmaker deliberately excluded any form of excitement or tension in an attempt to be subtle and sophisticated.
The dialogue was very natural but also very dull and pointless, the characters were dull and boring and the concept was only half explored due to the filmmakers pretentious attempt at subtlety.
If this film wasn't in French and didn't revolve around art and wine I'm sure all the critis wouldn't have the same stuck-up opinion. The fact is that this is a very fashionable film and not much more.
In my opinion it's pretentious rubbish!

Shalomp and mrmgool:

I'd say there's actually a lot to indicate to the viewer why they are here to watch the film. The opening shot sets it up perfectly: a clash of cultures, and of the past and the present as a house emerges from an area of natural overgrowth. The children running around reinforce the point. The plot goes straight to the point: Hélène is old and dying, and she wants to give away the house, but the family doesn't have time for it. This is the focus of the film for its entire length, so I think it is indicated to the viewer why they are here to watch the film pretty damn quickly.

The plot doesn't have high action or extreme tension, which it sounds like you are looking for, but it is not meant to. It does have conflict and tension, in fact it is driven by the question of what will happen to the house and the history preserved within. The metaphor of the film is obvious: it's about history and culture being eroded by the flow of modern life. It's about the destruction of family ties, and of the memories and traditions of the past slipping away and dying a quiet death.

Then again, you probably think metaphors are pretentious.

As for interesting characters, I thought Frédéric, someone fixated on economics, the force driving the modern world, yet who wanted to preserve the culture of the past, was pretty fascinating. As oldest sibling, he tries to be a responsible patriarchal figure, and hides his deep connection with the family and with the past from the others. Meanwhile, he faces crises in his own life. Maybe he thinks that this connection with the past is something keeping the balance in the life of himself and his family? It's also deliberate, I think, that an economist is the character who wants to keep the house, but considers it too expensive in the current climate to uphold old traditions. There are multiple levels to his character. I can understand if he doesn't interest you, but for you guys to say it's all dull and there's no interesting characters at all I have to ask: what are you looking for in a film?

To mrmgol's claim that liking this is a 'stuck-up' opinion and we only like the film because it revolves around art and wine...Well, firstly it doesn't revolve around wine at all, which makes me question whether you were paying attention or zoned. Too bored maybe? If you don't know what the film is about I question whether you can really tell to what extent the film explored it's concept (of art and heritage, for the record, but not wine). Secondly, I don't like the film because it's French, I like it because I find it to be a fine film. One of the things I hate is when someone claims that you must only like something because of some extraneous reason, as opposed to having actually enjoyed the film. It's as if the person speaking can't conceive of there being people out there holding different opinions to themselves. It can't be that they just reacted differently to a piece of art, it must be because they picked up on some other reason to like it and justified to themselves that they liked it for personal gain or something.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic. This film is not good because it's French (I can't comment on whether this makes it 'fashionable'), this film is French because it is made by French people and revolves around very French concerns. The issue of the disintegration of French culture due to modernisation is extremely important to that country right now. This film is a reaction to this framed in very relevant terms to this French cultural concern: the history of fine art that runs in that country, the strong museum culture in France and Paris especially, the coexistence of the past and present in Paris and that city's clash with much of the rest of the country, the way that globalisation is affecting culture and family, which also illustrates how the rest of the world turns to France and French people to capitalise on its cultural and artistic traditions. Essentially, the clash of the contemporary with a cultural history which is still uniquely near the surface in France, yet which is dying off.
This film is in many ways uniquely French. Once again, that's part of why I like it, but not a reason for which I chose to enjoy it. Enjoyment goes deeper than something that superficial, and is down to its worth as a piece of cinema. Though the films would be very different as a result of dealing with similar, yet subtly different concerns, I think this concept is interesting enough that, provided that the right people worked on it and were invested in the subject, a good film could be made about this theme in Spain, or in Japan, or in Norway.