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!

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.