User Reviews

Just finished watching the film. Overwhelmingly emotional. Superbe acting, real gutwrenching emotions. Especially the young son, his apprehension, his fear of his father. I felt it in every pore. The end is so powerful and everything you should never have to experience as a child as it totally destroys the feeling of safety a child should grow up in. Made me bawl my eyes out.

This film presents an all-too-familiar saga of domestic abuse. While it is important to raise awareness of this tragic topic, the end result of "Jusqu' à la garde" was all too foreseeable in its portrait of a deadbeat, violent dad.

In the film's opening scene, it is already apparent during the court hearing that the father Antoine has a problem when he fails to listen to the judge. The imposing size and strength of the man, as well as subtle indications of past abuse, should have alerted both the wife's attorney and the magistrate to order strictly supervised visitation rights for the man. The judge kept looking down at and reading her papers when she should have been looking at Antoine and asking the right questions.

As the film progressed, the family was far too slow in alerting the police and getting a restraining order against Antoine. A key moment was when Antoine's own parents witnessed his rage and abusive treatment of his little boy. They should have recognized that the kid was terrified of his raging father. Later, the sister of the abused wife witnessed a physical attack on the wife and "threatened" to call the police! What on earth were they all waiting for?

It was especially the catastrophic effects on the children that were so painful to watch in this train wreck of family dysfunction. The occurrences depicted here deserved a far more insightful approach than the predictable story provided in this film.

The drama about this film that this happens in our society every day somewhere. It leaves scares to everybody involved for a lifetime.... Very strong intense film. The strength comes from the slowness it moves on culminating I would not rate the violence in this film "moderate"! It is not moderate at all!! Scary!

One of those films that started at 11pm and I thought I'll watch 10 mins of this first and ended up being transfixed for the next 2 hours I dont have a lot to say about this film,but it must be some of the greatest acting I've ever seen...the fear of the father is absolutely amazing...the son ,the mother...I thought this was real...the end 20 mins is quite possibly the most scariest thing I've seen in movies... I feel bad to give this a 10 because,as a previous reviewer said,this isn't what happened,this is whats happening... An absolute heartbreaking film.....

I started watching this at night, because I couldn't sleep. That wasn't such a good idea. First of all, I couldn't stop watching as the impending drama is palpable and you can't look away, you have to watch it unravel. Second of all, that was terrifying. The movie begins by throwing doubt on the father-mother relationship, you don't know who's right or wrong even if the father/ex-husband feels like a beast in hiding. It's subtle, but he seems dangerous, his eyes, mostly, are very cold and his stature is impressive. But the real feat of the movie is its distilled anguish, it's slow, and it feels some scenes aren't useful to the movie but they actually build up until its gripping finale. Anyway, you should watch it, it's masterful and a faithful depiction of the dramas you read in newspaper.

"Jusqu'à la garde" or "Custody" is a new French movie written and directed by Xavier Legrand and this is his first full feature movie five years after he came up with an Oscar-nominated short film work. And while I don't remember being too big on said short film, at least the first time I saw it, I was mesmerized at times by this 90-minute film we have here. the first 75 minutes are rock solid really, nothing wrong, but nothing too great or memorable either. But the last 15 minutes, when the film basically turns away from family drama into a thriller, almost a horror movie (without supernatural elements of course), you will quickly be at the edge of your seat and you will stay there until the credits roll in. Also liked the way they got these in with the closing door, even if it did not feel having great metaphorical relevance to the story. To me the one who stays most memorable is Denis Ménochet, but that is also because he has the baitiest material probably. And his strong physical acting and menacing aura also fit very nicely. He was a great casting choice here. The movie begins in a way where for a long time you cannot be too sure with whom to side and how to share your sympathies between the two parents because apparently both are making crucial mistakes and the little boy is the one who end sup suffering because of that. But with what happens at the very end, you can easily make a case for the woman not wanting to know her ex-man where she lives now. Also about the last scene, I had a feeling he may actually commit suicide because there were moments before when he went from full rage to slight reason in an instant. Okay, you cannot call suicide reason, but you know what I mean. Also despite the hunting references earlier, I did not really see the escalation with the rifle coming in the end. So yeah thanks to the final quarter of an hour, perhaps the most intense sequence I have seen on film all year, I very much recommend checking it out and I would have liked to see this in the French original, but the German dub version was pretty good too. I also liked some of the subplots. They may not have added too much overall on their own, but they fit in very well with the way things escalate more and more and with that I mean the man's relationship with is own parents, not just the father, and also the daughter's relationship and her struggles in general. As for the escalation between the former couple, it can be said that while, like I said earlier, early on it was not clear he was the major problem, the bizarre love confession, the parking lot meeting (also showing his jealousy for the first time) and eventually the nightly visit made the situation more and more serious within a brief span of time. Back to the apartment I mentioned earlier, it was interesting how they took us on a journey through it early on when the mother is moving in and at the end we are there again when things go very wrong. So yes, there are many interesting things about this film and I am sure in case I ever watch it again (why not given how much I liked it), I will discover some new aspects that add even more spice to the viewing. Probably a contender for best french film from 2017 for me, definitely top5, probably top3 even, and given how much I adore French films, this is quite a compliment. A must-see if you love high-quality family dramas. The praise is justified and the awards recognition is well-deserved. Go see this one.