Jed Falby My women friends loved this, while my male friends and I squirmed through what seemed a painfully long drawn out predictable story. In drama of all sorts, when someone is so happy at the start you can just see the bad news coming. Life and the Film Business should have taught us all by now that the writer/actor/director/ roles combined in one human being is usually not a wise move. Sadly, this film proves it. I am sure Melanie Laurent will go on to do more good films (If you direct don't act - If you act please don't direct) but "The Adopted" could do with some much firmer discipline in cutting and moving the story along. I loved some of the acting sequences woman-to-woman in the book shop (that marvellous book shop owner!) and probably my favorite scene is the young boy talking to his dead aunt in his treasured Polaroid picture that scene really is film - underline film!

rightwingisevil you have to admit that when the french got a very good screenplay, then found a very good director, then the casting c.s.a. did a great job to find the appropriate actors to play it, then that film would be nothing but great, and this film just proved it. this is a very simply straight forward movie that we might or might not have watched before. the storyline is actually with one pretty directional development. the deep love of two young women, one of them was adopted as an orphan by a loving single-parental, free-willed independent mother, the elder sister treated the adopted one like a real sister. and the elder dramatically was a second generation single parent with a love young boy(who acted so naturally well and lovable in this film). the adopted daughter working in a bookstore with a lonely, always complaining, insecure female owner (also played so naturally well). she fell in love with a man who came in to seek sanctuary from the rain. they fell in love(gradually and also, so naturally in this film without any forced falsehood). she was loved so deeply by that man and sometimes so fearful of the commitment and wanted to escape the relationship and still tried to stay with her adopted family, her sister, her nephew, and her adopted mother. there were so many profound dialog about love, anti-commitment, family value, how to deal with personal demons, how to be loved and why you must love, why you have to seek someone out from the crowd and choose him or her for your life and the only person who would occupy in your whole life after you've found him or her.and of course, the moon could never be always full, and flowers could never be stayed blossomed and always radiate wonderful smells. tragedy got to happen to make a drama evolve into the second but deeper level. and the scenario and the plot were both predictable and one directional, but in a very good development by the very crafty screenplay.there is a very subtle agenda and ingredient in this movie that strongly claimed: the unavoidable loss and repetition of the fate; the fatal and doomed outcomes of the unforeseeable future (but is it really so foreseeable and/or so unpredictable? i don't think so). there seems an unsee-able being that we call 'fate' hiding behind everybody's life, manipulating you to go or reroute the paths of your life.the other thought floated up when the movie came to end was: why french movie always used American pop songs at the beginning, in between and in the finale? are American songs the only choice that could be more compatible with a french movie? or the french sound trackers for their movies always considered American songs could match their movies more appropriately? or they thought the french songs in their french movies are not quite matching? what is it? this is a question that always came up onto my mind when watching the European movies, it's not just french movie only, German, Holland, the scandinavians, east europeans...they always chose American songs for their own unique movies. this is a myth that i'd like all the movie industries of all the countries other than the American to think about seriously. what's wrong with your own songs that you prefer not using them instead of the Americans?

writers_reign Back in 2006 I described Melanie Laurent as outstanding in Philippe Loriet's Don't Worry, I'm Fine and I've had no cause to revise that opinion in the intervening years. By pure coincidence I was able to see her twice yesterday - on my way to check out her first feature as a director, she has already directed one short and one TV film, I stopped in a DVD store and right at the front they were displaying The Round Up which I fell upon and watched last night. First things first, in Les Adoptes she displays all the sensitivity of Philippe Loriet and has delivered a fine, moving film not a million miles away from Don't Worry, I'm Fine, which explores the joys and pain of sibling love. With the help of an exceptional, if largely unknown cast, and taking a key role herself Ms Laurent proves herself worthy to join such other French actor-directors as Valerie Lemercier, Toni Marshall, Nicole Garcia, Ann Fontaine and Agnes Jouai. One to savor.