Movies like The Long Absence

Transport Minister Bertrand Saint-Jean is awoken in the middle of the night by his head of staff. A bus has gone off the road into a gully. He has no choice but to go to the scene of the accident. Thus begins the odyssey of a politician in a world that is increasingly more complex and hostile.

Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.

The life of little St. Therese of Lisieux, depicted in minimalist vignettes. Therese and her sisters are all nuns in a Carmelite convent. Her devotion to Jesus and her concept of "the little way" to God are shown clearly, using plain modern language. A sense of angelic simplicity comes across without fancy lights, choirs, or showy miracles.

On Christmas Eve, Swiss minister Jean Martens takes in a blind, half-crippled orphan and brings her up among his own four children. But Gertrude grows into a woman and Jean gradually falls in love with her without admitting it to himself. On the contrary, he lulls his conscience by interpreting the Scriptures to his advantage. But neither his wife nor his oldest son are fooled. Following a long-delayed operation, Gertrude recovers her sight but she is not long to find out that sin has corrupted the soul of her benefactor.

In Lisbon, French author Paul meets various people from his past who uncover forgotten memories.

Hans has killed the dog of Firmin, a shepherd. Wild with rage, Firmin kidnaps Elsi, Hans' fiancée and locks her up at his home. Hans, a peddler, vows to find the missing girl. This is what he does and he manages, with the help of Mânu, the village idiot, to give Elsi a letter. On seeing her, the changeling falls in love at first sight with the young woman. Elsi soon realizes that Mânu can become her instrument of vengeance.

Henri has just lost his wife after 40 years of life together. They used to run a family hotel in the belgian countryside. Dominique, Ludovic and Louis, his 3 children, are keen to sell the hotel and start new lives, far away from the memory of their mother. Without facing up to or sharing their father’s grief, they take matters in hand. But the arrival of Alice, a young woman who’s 8 months’ pregnant, turns their plans upside down. Henri reopens the hotel for her and, as he can’t seem to talk to his children, makes her his confidante.

Raymond is a very lonely peasant who lives so detached from the world that the peasants of the village nearby his family house consider him as dead for more than 30 years. None sees him but people know he is around and, as all secretly reproach themselves to not have helped the young Raymond after his all family death before he disappeared, they consider the family house as haunted by Raymond's ghost. When Frédéric, Caroline and their children come from the city to install themselves in the countryside, they know nothing about these villages tells and find in Raymond's family house a rare opportunity.

Dean and Cindy live a quiet life in a modest neighborhood. They appear to have the world at their feet at the outset of the relationship. However, his lack of ambition and her retreat into self-absorption cause potentially irreversible cracks in their marriage.

Two men share an odd friendship while they care for two women who are both in deep comas.

FBI agent Malcolm Turner and his 17-year-old son Trent go undercover at an all-girls performing arts school after Trent witnesses a murder. Posing as Big Momma and Charmaine, they must find the murderer before he finds them.

A middle-aged woman leaves her partner and drifts back to her ex-husband, while the lives of her middle class friends intersect with her own.