tigerfish50 A feckless young woman, Jeanne, lives with her mother in the suburbs of Paris and loves roller-blading. Looking for work, Jeanne applies for a position with an activist Jewish lawyer, Bleistein, a former admirer of her mother's - but she prepares badly, tells fibs to cover her shortcomings and is caught out. After failing to get the job, Jeanne impulsively hooks up with an edgy tattooed wrestler, Frank, who also loves roller-blading, and they soon become lovers. Some time later a friend of Frank's asks the pair to house-sit an apartment above his electronics warehouse while he's away on vacation, but unknown to Jeanne, the warehouse is a drug-dealing front and Frank is in on the deal. One day, while Jeanne is out, Frank is seriously wounded by a buyer, and as a consequence both of them are arrested. Despite facing a long sentence, Frank convinces the police of his girlfriend's innocence - but blames her for his bad luck and callously ends their relationship. Jeanne's response to this rejection is somewhat extreme. She gives herself some shallow cuts and daubs a Nazi swastika on her body in a mirror, before claiming that she'd been mistaken for a Jew, and attacked by some anti-semitic thugs. Her story creates a press sensation, but soon falls apart when the police scrutinize her account. Jeanne stubbornly refuses to recant, so her mother contacts Bleistein to help elicit a confession. The two women pay a visit to the lawyer's country home, and after a stormy night of self-examination, Jeanne decides to face the music - whereupon she receives a light sentence and roller-blades off into an unknown future.'The Girl on the Train' is graced with a sensitive performance by Emilie Dequenne in the lead role. As Jeanne's story unfolds, it reveals how life's apparent randomness conceals deeper patterns. Techine punctuates the action with imagery of trains and roller-blades - the trains speeding doggedly across the suburban landscape on their way to fixed destinations - whereas Jeanne meanders through parks on her roller-blades, her life lacking both direction and goal. 'The Girl on the Train' should be interpreted as an esoteric parable of liberation. Jeanne is imprisoned by time and place, but she's on the verge of infinite freedom. She lives in a world where everybody lies to her for their own convenience or advantage - and her alienation from society is a reflection of her discomfort with its pervasive mendacity. She has become infected with this sickness - and what is destroying her, must be her cure. Using the same strategy as Sarah Woodruff in 'The French Lieutenant's Woman', Jeanne ritually marks herself with blood and a sacred symbol (a Sanskrit swastika) for her rite of passage, and then fabricates an absurd racist assault in order to disgrace herself - knowing she will be disbelieved and dishonored - thereby liberating herself from society's norms. By the film's conclusion Jeanne has swapped traditional roles with the bourgeois Jewish lawyer - his family disintegrating in disputes over empty rituals - and transformed herself into the wandering Jew of her unbelievable tale. She has been through the fire, acknowledged her sins, accepted her penance and is roller-blading through life armed with self-realization. She has conquered herself, and become one of Joseph Campbell's Heroes with a Thousand Faces.

Scroobious This movie consists of scenes of a girl Rollerblading, occasionally interrupted by a failed attempt at storyline and character study. Before, or better if, you read any further: Don't Waste Your Time.This movie was 102 Minutes, but honestly felt double that length. The whole thing stunk, but here come the specific aspects of reek. We are never given any motivation for the "true event" culmination this movie is based around. There are peripheral stories and characters that are useless to plot development and uninteresting. It's slow, it goes nowhere and if I hadn't been watching it with other people I would have shut it off about 3/4s of the way through. I think there is still a contingent of American people out there that believe foreign equals complex and innovative. Watch this Rollerblading commercial called a movie and you'll realize that merde is merde in any language. (Look it up).

ragavacharyar This movie is basically pointless. I was drawn in by the storyline only to find that the movie meanders on for some 80-85 minutes or so in the 'les circonstances' except that there really aren't a lot of circumstances that add up to what the protagonist does. Afterward, the protagonist cuts herself a little, draws a few swastikas on herself and says she's been a victim of a hate crime. Her mom knows its not true as her daughter, the protagonist, claims she was attacked because the lawyer Blestein's card was found in her bag (it turns out that Blestein didn't believe in business cards and didn't print any). Then Blestein and the girl's mom try to get the daughter to confess to what she had done. She does, gets a suspended sentence and is seen rollerblading again. What a pointless movie.

treeline1 In this story set in Paris, we get to know two very different families and see them eventually connect. The first is that of Jeanne, a rather aimless and unmotivated young woman who lives with her mother (Catherine Deneuve) and spends her time roller blading. The second is that of successful lawyer Nathan who is about to celebrate his grandson's bar mitzvah. When Jeanne becomes involved with a low-life creep and does something very foolish, it is Nathan who comes to the rescue.The movie is based on the true story of a girl who claimed she was attacked on a train because she was Jewish. The nation was shocked and even more outraged when it turned out she made it all up. The movie is made in a pseudo-New Wave style with unsympathetic, isolated characters, abrupt scene cuts, unresolved story lines, and the constant blaring of passing trains. Jeanne's lie was a huge event in France, but here it is merely a part of her outsider's psyche.If you like stories about complex, non-mainstream characters, this is the movie for you. It is blunt and unapologetic, fascinating and above all, very real.