A lovely looking and acted film, in desperate need of a script

Rating: 3/10 (29 July 2011)

Forgive me for being the on person who stood out among the crowd here, but by God I really can't see how this has an 8.2 rating here on IMDb. Now I can see that this would be loved to death by those who only watch "film" and not movies, but come on, folks.
I do like Denis Villanueve... Or at least I did. I saw his movie Polytechnique and I loved it. It was brutal, uncompromising yet very heartfelt and uplifting. I loved the black and white cinematography, as well as the feeling of being caught in the middle of the shooting. His filmmaking is just lovely in that film. So with hi expectations already in place, I was hoping this would do the good deed.
Alright, from a filmmaking standpoint, as in cinematography and all that jazz, the movie is amazing. If I could give the movie a 10 for that alone, I so would. With all the gorgeous scenery and what not, this film really is pleasing to the eye. And the soundtrack is fantastic too, with "You and whose Army" by Radiohead over the opening scene- I LOVED that! And the acting is really brilliant, Maxim Gaudette and the female lead both did very great together.
But how shallow was this film.
The biggest problem is its characterization. Characters go a long way in a film for me, and believe me I wanted to feel for the mother and her children. I'll admit they did quite well with the mother, and the scenes with the flashbacks to her past were very intriguing. But them we went to present day with the kids, and the daughter in her mother's homeland, and suddenly the film goes all to naught because the children are SO DAMNED UNINTERESTING. In fact I don't remember a thing about the son because he was in the movie for like, literally, 5 minutes.
Another problem is the script... If there even is one.. The movie feels like Villanueve dropped the script one day, then picked it up and instead of putting the pages in the right order, went "Ah, never mind, shoot it like this!" The dialogue is so wooden and hokey, that at times I fell on the ground laughing at the implausibility. In fact scene. After scene, I was scratching my head because the scenes have no meaning. And don't get me started on the twist with the third child, when that came, I asked myself "was this some bad joke the cast and crew had going on throughout the shoot?"
I wish I could jump on the bandwagon like a lot of us here have, but the movie is so dire, tired and dull. And furthermore it's 30 minutes too long too. This is a 90 minute or even a 100 minute movie stretched to 2 hours and 10 minutes. It did not need to be that long.
OVERALL: 3/10
Pros: A very beautifully shot movie, with great acting and soundtrack.
Cons: The film is otherwise very shallow, with an almost zero level script, bad pacing, and dull and shallow characters.