Mark Kermode, Observer film critic 

A Thousand Times Good Night review – earnest drama that explores the struggle between home and work

Juliette Binoche plays a war photographer forced to choose between her marriage and her job in this uneven tale, writes Mark Kermode
  
  

A Thousand Times Good Night, review
'Oddly disjointed': Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Juliette Binoche in A Thousand Times Good Night. Photograph: PR

War photographers such as Don McCullin have spoken eloquently of the tragic incompatibility between their chosen profession and a happy domestic life. This earnest feature from photographer turned director Erik Poppe draws on his own experiences but reverses gender roles, casting Juliette Binoche (Rebecca) as the risk-addicted professional whose husband and children suffer in her absence. After a tense opening suicide-bomber set piece in Kabul, the action moves to Dublin, where a recuperating Rebecca is forced to choose between her marriage to marine biologist Marcus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and her increasingly life-threatening profession. Although the ideas and performances are strong, the drama itself feels oddly disjointed as it veers between the refugee camps of Kenya and the beaches of Ireland, reflecting the alienating pattern of its protagonist's unreconciled life.

 

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