Best movie of this year hands down!

Absolutely the worst movie.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

I loved this film. It is such a great story told beautifully. I don't want to say too much because I think it's better to let the film take you on its journey but it is supremely acted by Marion Cotillard who wholly inhabits Gabrielle and Alex Brudenmahel was just a revelation. He says so much without saying much at all. I would recommend that you skip the critics reviews and just watch the film and judge for yourself.

So many negative reviews, esp the Metacritic reviews! What movie were they watching? Guess it is a love/hate kind of movie.Tour de force acting by all. This could have easily turned melodramatic in other hands, esp with Gabrielle's state of mind, but Marion Cotillard's acting skills worked a wonder, as did Nicole Garcia's directing. A beautiful, if melancholic, love story. Gorgeous locations and photography, in the Alps and by the sea. The sound was spectacular and nominated for a Cesar award. It seemed like the ambiance was recorded while filming, instead of the usual Foley artists coming in to re-create the sound later. I think they did Foley some things, like footsteps, but the important scenes were recorded live. That is so rare; I felt like I was there, as I was when younger. If I am wrong, then outstanding Foley work! The music was perfect for the mood. Wow, I didn't even realize it was so long. It never felt like it. Sparse dialog and much of the film is done via feelings. When that is done so well it is truly a treat not many can pull off. Be sure and catch all the dialog, though, or you may not get it. I tried to guess what 'twist' could possibly happen, as I had read some reviews and knew there was one, but I was wrong (although mine was a good one!). It is rare to be fooled by a film these days! I feel strangely uplifted just now after watching this film, for some odd reason. Perhaps it is that I feel like I have just had a trip to Europe, or I was so immersed it was truly an escape and a journey. Enjoy!

Correct me if I'm wrong. This could be the first major film in which a grand passion starts with kidney stones. (Full disclosure: None of my three episodes went that way — but then none were spent at a posh French rural spa. Mind, one was in Paris.)The original French title is more revealing: The Sickness of the Stone. The film is about the affliction of stoniness — but that of the heart (turn left at the kidney). The central characters suffer from different forms of this inability to feel and to express true emotion. The central case is Gabrielle, who didn't learn emotions or their expression from her cold, practical mother. But her dull rural life nourished a rich hunger for fantasy, especially of the romantic persuasion. So powerful is her imaginative drive that it prevents her development of a real-life love. The English title — From the Land of the Moon — refers to her preference of her dream-world over reality in human connection. She is a moony dreamer, a "lunatic" in that original sense.Her first case is her schoolgirl crush on her literature tutor. She's so in love with the idea of being in love that — with no encouragement — she imagines a full-blown passion with that happily married older man. Her madness scares her mother into marrying her off to a Spanish bricklayer Jose. Gabrielle vows never to love him. He doesn't love her at the start of their marriage. Whether out of curiosity or good housekeeping, she eventually agrees to give him sex for what he would pay the prostitute. Then the kidney stones kick in. What begins as periodic cramps eventually causes a miscarriage. At Jose's insistence she retreats for treatment to a lavish country spa. There she continues her compulsive isolation — save her connection to a serving girl — until she meets and falls for Andre Sauvage. He lost a kidney in the Indochina war and suffers pained and drugged in his room alone. As his surname suggests, their eruptive passion does an end-around on the niceties of civilization and the sacrament of marriage. Or does it? A key scene in Gabrielle's imagined life plays out so persuasive that Jose's eventual revelation brings her — and us — thudding back to reality. Her men provide a key contrast in the theme of stoniness. Dream-man Andre (quite literally, at that) comes across as a man off intense emotion. But the wear has paralyzed him emotionally, rendering him unable to respond to the woman he might have loved "in another lifetime." In the spa for his missing kidney, Andre is another victim of emotional stoniness. From his experience in the Spanish civil war Jose suffered deracination, not as serious as the renal ruin but significant. It leaves him silent, withdrawn, private. His inexpressiveness seems healthy compared to his wife's florid fantasy. Unlike Andre, he can fully respond to Gabrielle, coming to love her through their shared life and even her suffering. He shows gallantry when he first walks away from her initial rejection. When he learns of her love for Andre, he respects her enough to allow her illusion to sustain her. Jose's reticent manner may suggest a coldness but he's the healthiest character in the film. He is a man of feeling not flash. Thanks to his practical engagement with the world and his growing emotional commitment, he ultimately gives Gabrielle the chance to find fulfilment here on earth. The last shot has them looking down on his village, his house, emphasizing her shift away from the moon. Indeed, Jose's character promises to sustain that marriage even better than the simpler, apparently happy marriage of Gabrielle's sister, who threatens to leave her husband's abandonment.

I was waiting for this movie after I have watched "Youth" of Paolo Sorentino. The reason is quite simple from the first glance and extremely marvelous from my point of view. First time in my life, I am still with Youth, I realized what is the pure beauty of the nature….Thus, what I found out that in the same location "Mal de pierres" was shout I was expecting to indulge once again into fascinating scenery of nature. And of course, I was expecting the other background - provided by the movie and the plot. I would divide movie into three parts: part 1 - boring & typical, part 2 - natural eye opening and part 3: reasonableThe plot is exactly what is said about the movie on any poster: she does not love, he (looks like) loves, she is becoming crazy and mad in the naive searches of love from the book. And this is basically the first part of mine. My second part starts with the trip to Schatzalp in Davos. At the end of the first part an idea stroke my mind - what if the movie is not about she and her sufferings of loving not the right people?.....My second part is the most beautiful - breathtaking views of Swiss Alps, love story of the main she male character - an affair with young lieutenant (by the way perfectly chosen youth + war - for sure must be inspired by Thomas Mann's "Der Zauberberg").My third part - leaving Alps and coming back to humdrum reality and again waiting for a love. Same stupid, naive love from the novels… Beautifully playing actors, beautiful need and the search for the real love and even after realizing that this love can be nearby - may be not even love but "near & dear". Maybe we can call it to to grow up & become a woman ...finally.But in my opinion, the main idea as well as the main character is not Gabriel. What if the key to decipher the movie lays in undistinguished Jose? Do you remember his sight at the beginning of the movie? I guess this is the sight of the man willing to die for his love…In my opinion, the movie is about Jose and his love, about the man who sacrificed his life and was withstanding all the "whims" and finally received hope for love. I would call it "the silent fight" for the love. Coming back to the movie, the film is nice and beautiful, but in some moments a bit boring and lacks some expression and deepness. But for sure, I personally received what I was expecting and definitely it is one of the best recent movies so far.