A Very Long Engagement (Un long dimanche de fiançailles)

A young woman's stubborn search for her missing fiancé drives A Very Long Engagement (Un long dimanche de fiançailles in French), Jean-Pierre Jeunet's adaptation of Sébastien Japrisot's 1991 novel, made in 2004 as a Franco-American romantic war drama. It opened in France on 27 October 2004 and in Turkey on 25 March 2005, drew mostly positive reviews and took about 70 million dollars worldwide.

The story is set in 1919, after the First World War. Mathilde (Audrey Tautou), a 19-year-old who survived polio, is told that her fiancé Manech (Gaspard Ulliel) died at the front, but she trusts her intuition and refuses to believe it. Her inquiries show that Manech was one of five French soldiers condemned for an offence and left to die. As she pieces together testimonies and clues she faces the brutal realities of the trenches without giving up hope. The cast also includes Marion Cotillard, Dominique Pinon, André Dussollier and Jodie Foster.

Jeunet wrote the script with Guillaume Laurant, and the producers included 2003 Productions and Warner Bros. France. Made for about 47 million dollars, the film won five of its twelve César nominations: Cotillard took Best Supporting Actress and Ulliel Most Promising Actor. It had two Oscar nominations, for art direction and cinematography.