We first meet Juliette in a provincial airport in France where we also meet her estranged sister (Elsa Zylberstein). From there we watch the family dance around the thing that no-one is allowed to mention, and over the course of the nicely-paced and compelling 115 minutes the secret and its ramifications are drawn out bit by bit.

At various points during the movie the music score seems to be on the verge of breaking into yet another incompetent, facile, bland, commercial cover version of Leonard Cohen's “Hallelujah”, but mercifully this is not the case; dear Leonard's art remains unsullied and the sensitivities of the paying public are spared.

Juliette is revealed as a woman of incredible compassion, courage and devotion, although first impressions are of a somewhat dowdy, uninteresting woman who has done nothing with her life. However she has been caught up in an impossible family situation which she must suffer alone, caught between a rock and a hard place. She cannot even reveal information she has that would gain her the sympathy of many. True friendship is beyond her grasp because it inevitably will lead to questions about her whereabouts for the previous 15 years and what she was up to. However there is some companionship to be had for Juliette in the person of her sister's father-in-law who, after suffering a debilitating stroke, is left without speech but with an active brain and the ability to hear. She can talk to him in monologue without running the risk of the questions that dialogue would permit.

Rebuilding her life 15 years after the event she can confide in no-one. Those who know the facts of her past are mistrustful, suspicious and hostile. Gradually, with the love of her sister and various others who don't know of her past, she arrives at a place where she begins to live again, but only just. The past will always be there, and the mitigating circumstances which gave rise to her dark secret are known only to the sister and to the movie-goers. It's frustrating not being able to jump into the set and explain the full story to the other characters. However this is cinema, not pantomime, and we can't shout out “he's behind you” when we see a villain creeping up behind the hero. A bit like life.

Philippe Claudel directs.

Rating: Kids say it's a must-own

Major Players

• James P. Sullivan voiced by John Goodman
• Mike Wazowski voiced by Billy Crystal
• Boo voiced by Mary Gibbs

Monsters, Inc. is the local corporation responsible for providing Monstropolis with power. One of the most coveted jobs in the land is that of best scarer, a title currently held by James P. Sullivan, lovingly known as Sully. His assistant is Mike Wazowski, the best tank and door changer in the business. Mike, however, is not always timely with his paperwork. This forgetfulness leaves Sully alone on the scare floor one night, where he discovers that a door has been left unattended. Sully opens the door to see if anybody is working, only to find himself face to face with a human child, known to be toxic and feared by monsters above all else.

Sully falls victim to the child, which he names Boo, as she makes her way through the land of Monstropolis wreaking havoc and mayhem. With the help of his assistant, he seeks only to return her to the safety of her bedroom and rid himself of the burden. Along the way, Sully finds that humans are not toxic or scary, and this particular human is quite adorable.

Sully and Mike uncover a plot to kidnap children, starting with Boo, in a last ditch effort to save the power grid of Monstropolis by creating a continual supply of screams that will be extracted from the kidnapped children by machine instead of the old fashioned way of scaring them in their beds at night. They also discover that there is a far more powerful source of energy to be had if only knew how.

Sully discovers a love deep within himself that pushes him to fight to protect his precious Boo against all the obstacles and dangers that may befall her. In the end, love and friendship save the day while treachery and deception are uncovered.

Viewers will wonder what will happen next as they sit on the edge of their seat waiting for the next twist. With so much excitement and adventure, even the adults will enjoy watching this movie, which is good because this movie will be watched - over and over and over and over....

Parent's Note: There is some minor to moderate cartoon violence and off-color jokes.

Sula is a story centered in a small town called Medallion, Ohio. The novel tells of generations of the families that inhabit this town, and focuses chiefly on the youngest generation-that of Sula Peace and her best friend, Nel Wright. The two girls become friends, finding comfort in their similarities. Together, they grow into women and have a bond that, while unspoken, is strong enough to ultimately overcome any adversity. Nel is married at a young age and settles into the life of a housewife, while Sula ventures out into the world, attends college, and doesn't return for ten years. Despite this separation, upon their reunion, the affection between the women is as strong as the day on which they parted. This kind of bond is uncommon at best, and the love between the two, though it grows strained, is constant.

Seemingly undermining this constant love and performing what most would consider the ultimate betrayal, Sula sleeps with Nel's husband, Jude. Jude leaves his family; Nel is heartbroken and distances herself from Sula. Nel is convinced that what weighs on her is the absence of Jude; she believes that she misses him and cannot forgive Sula for what has happened. She begins to see a gray ball over her shoulder made of “muddy strings” (109) and hair. Nel does not know what the ball is or why it follows her, but she fears it. Finally, at the end of the novel, when Sula dies and Nel overcomes her grudge, the ball explodes, and Nel realizes that the ball was her own sorrow for missing her best friend, not her husband. Through all things-even what seems a complete betrayal, and the hurt feelings that follow-the friendship between Sula and Nel survives.

A friendship much like Nel and Sula's develops in Almodovar's Bad Education. Enrique and Ignacio meet and become friends when they are very young, in religious school. They quickly bond over their love of the cinema-particularly Sara Montiel-and soon, discover a love for each other. The two boys explore their sexuality together and become very close, as a result. In the midst of their blossoming relationship, the school's principal, Father Manolo, develops feelings for Ignacio and begins to act on them. The Father soon realizes that there is something between the two boys and separates them by expelling Enrique from the school. Several years later, masquerading as Ignacio, his brother Juan enters Enrique's office, offering a script for a film and himself as an actor. From the start, Enrique senses a problem with his “friend,” not recognizing him at all, and rightfully so, as Juan is not who he claims to be. Enrique's uneasy feelings around Juan demonstrate the power of his and Ignacio's relationship, as the audience can read in his face that he never quite trusts Juan. After the film is made and all of the mysteries are solved, Juan gives Enrique a letter Ignacio was writing just moments before he died. This letter is a symbol of the love between the two friends-Enrique being the last person Ignacio thinks of before his death. The film's close, an epilogue of sorts, informs the audience that Enrique continues to make films with passion to this day, a testament to the passion he first discovered with his childhood friend. Ultimately, the friendship of Enrique and Ignacio is greater than the intrusions of those around them, much like that of Sula and Nel in Morrison's novel Sula.

Stories of great friendship are all connected, just as those who share in a great friendship. The relationship of Sula and Nel, and that of Enrique and Ignacio are such great friendships, because they overcome whatever is thrown at them. This is why the theme of friendship is greater than those of superficial matters-friendship endures.

When it comes to a teal about Afghanistan, like any country that we really know little about except what the media wants to feed you, it is difficult to imagine how life would be if you had lost contact with your friends, found out that they died while you were away and then had to fight a alien system to adopt the child of that friend. The background is war torn Afghanistan. We all make choices; there was a decent way of living in Afghanistan that has been largely destroyed because of internal struggles. The film shows the struggle for change and the choice towards what we consider as terrorist is indeed given a negative light. The hero of the film is far from perfect, he turns his back on his close childhood friend who is beaten for him and that weakness is mirrored by the boy aiming the same sort of weapon at a new enemy, his terrorist captives. The orphanage where the son of the friend had lived during the rebel insurgencies reveals a shocking reality. Tragedy is balanced with the return of the Afghani to the US with the boy and the promise of a new life to begin.

We see a protagonist who grows up in Afghanistan and never learns to defend himself from bullies. He has his friends do that. Even as an adult he was much the same, except he learned to accept the responsibility of bringing a better quality of life to the son of his friend. If there is a weakness in the story it would be in the addition of a scene to inform us of the fall out of the friendship, or something added to a scene where the hero beats his friend because he does not defend himself. Obviously it is the other way around but the scene lacks some credibility. It would have been better had the coward admitted his fault and that would have initiated the rift between the two without the director having to stick in a scene on a theft. In any case the poorer friend was always thankful for the education he got from his cowardly friend who later proves his bravery. One walks away with a sense of relief that at least the son of his friend was saved but one wonders of the fate of the other orphanage boys who were not as lucky.