The movie starts with the police and fire dept breaking down the door. They find Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) long dead laid out on the bed with beautiful flowers. Then we find Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne as retired music teachers enjoying life. But Anne shows signs of problems. She has a stroke and her faculties decline. First she blacks out and can't do simple tasks. She has an operation but it fails. She makes him promise not to bring her back to the hospital. Their daughter Eva (Isabelle Huppert) has relationship problems of her own. She is distraught as her mother deteriorates after a second stroke. She tries to interject as her father struggles under the weight of it all.

Please be warned that this is a rather slow paced long movie. The progression of the deterioration is given plenty of time to develop. My parents are going through a similar situation, and there is a lot of truth in this movie. Both leads are pitch perfect as the characters change and struggle. Emmanuelle Riva deserves all the accolades she received. She and Jean-Louis are both superb. There are no easy answers to this movie. At least, that's my view experiencing it in real life.

a film about love. precise, honest, cruel, more than realistic. two great actors in magnificent roles , exploring the sides and levels and challenges of love as only way to be yourself. a strange end. and delicate art, high science of detail of an unique director who recreates laws and gestures and essence of words in a film who broke limits and use a form of poetry of small things who has the status of profound challenge. a film about the other reflected in yourself. about lost and about hope. about small gestures and about the past. a new version of Philemon and Baucis. out of gods' visit, with the same evolution from the legend.

The retired piano players and teachers Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) live in a comfortable apartment in Paris. Their daughter Eva (Isabelle Huppert) is a musician in tour through Europe. One day, Anne has a stroke that paralyzes her right side, and Georges nurses his wife and promises that he will send her neither to a hospital nor to a nursing home. Soon Anne's life deteriorates and her mental and physical capabilities decline very fast leading Georges to take a tragic decision.

"Amour" is a depressing movie about the end of a journey of a retired couple of about eighty and something years old. "Amour" has impressive performances of Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant and is developed in very slow pace, almost theatrically, and is sad to see the elder wife losing her dignity due to her physical and mental problems. I recall Emmanuelle Riva very young in movies like "Hiroshima, mon amour" or "Léon Morin, prêtre" and Jean-Louis Trintignant in the unforgettable "Un homme et une femme" or "Et Dieu... créa la femme" and seeing them now seniors make me think how short life is and made me sad. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Amor" ("Love")