Premiered at the Cannes Film Festival with a Running Time of 157 minutes (2 hours 37 minutes), which was then cut down by 15 minutes, against director
Arnaud Desplechin's wishes, for theatrical release in France and elsewhere. The cut version essentially removes three scenes: a dream sequence of Esther, and two scenes fleshing out the Philippe Haygard character. The full uncut version was released on DVD in France and has screened in a few places such as the Lincoln Center in New York in 2019.