I've Loved You So Long (2008)—French

It takes all two hours of this film for the secrets that have defined Juliette to dribble out, in particular why and how she disappeared from the family for fifteen years and why her parents utterly rejected her. But she's back, a withdrawn and silent version of her former self. Juliette moves in with the young family of her sister Lea, who despite the secrets both spoken and unspoken tells Juliette, "I'm glad that you're here, it's a very good idea." Lea was only a teenager when Juliette left, but her diaries show that she marked every single day that her sister was gone. Her husband Luc, two adopted toddlers from Vietnam, and Luc's aging father who's silent from a stroke, all together provide a redemptive family context for Juliette's recovery. "Family is important," says one of the several counselors with whom Juliette must meet every month, "you're lucky. Most people have nothing when they get out." Families are the contexts of so much pain, but in this film it also shows that families can be places of healing, no matter how horrific the past. In French with English subtitles.