I know that is not fashionable to say a movie is lovely but find no other better expression.

The acting and the subtle romance developing amidts the trial. You see the smile of Sidse Babett Knudsen as she hears the nervous judge speaking about his love for her is so tender and sweet, as is the amused judge liberated of his cold and hard judicial persona.

The rest of the cast, from the tense silence of the wife and the few word the accused says, all of them are so natural and expressive.

Really enjoyed the movie, which moves in a calm but constant pace that make you feel almost surpised when it ends.

Beautiful.

I saw this beautiful film when at the Venice Film Festival in 2015. I don't have a deep knowledge of French cinema, but I found the film moving and touching. The story of a severe judge who's heart is softened by a past love. This past love surprising reappears in his life and changes his life forever. Beautifully told, and amazingly wordy. And perhaps this is what surprised me. Despite the long scenes of dialogue, it was engaging and engrossing. I never felt like a word was wasted. This is the sign of good writing. And I was watching it in the original language with English subtitles. Would highly recommend it.

Like Louis Jouvet and Jean-Pierre Barrault of a previous generation Fabrice Luchini is essentially a man of the theatre who has somehow contrived to appear in some seventy-seven films. When he does deign to step before the cameras as often as not the film will be a tad on the quirky side, like the time Sandrine Bonnaire mistook him for an analyst who had an office in the same building and unburdened herself of her marital problems, leading them to form a relationship of sorts, or Cycling With Moliere, for which he also provided the story. In L'Hermine he plays what is probably the nearest thing possible today to a 'hanging' judge, one feared for his implacability, coldness, and harsh sentences. It is, of course, a given that when a character begins a story so strongly defined one way he will, by the end of the film have performed a volte-face - see Ebeneezer Scrooge. Here Luchini finds himself sitting in judgment on a man accused of killing his own young son and who should be sitting on the jury but Sidse Babett Knudson, of whom Luchini was once enamoured. There's little more to it than that substance-wise but Luchini is a first-rate actor as is Knudson so time spent with them is time well spent.