it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

I think that this movie was very good, a little confusing at times, but overall well done. I enjoy a orphanage haunting and this one sat me down, and made my mind wander. The main character made me love her in a peculiar way, mysterious, yet beautiful. Her willingness to find the truth instead of cower and run sank me deeper and deeper. I say give it a go, and be willing to venture into a dark place full of odd discoveries. Don't compare it to The Others, or The Orphanage. It is its own film, with a neat kind of scary journey. The structure of the house is done really well and just made me want to venture in and get lost. I think the director did an amazing job, well enough for me to come on here and write a review.

The film delivers for it's intent. Never was it billed as a Not to be a jump and scare ghost story, nor violently bloody. it nevertheless does have all of the ghost story premises intact, a large vacant orphanage secured away in the french alps, plenty of long corridors and winding staircases, and hidden rooms, this film is shot beautifully, and I really liked Joe LoDuca's score (LoDuca having worked with Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and Rob Tapert on the Evil Dead films and the Xena and Hercules TV shows) The film is what it is, a nice creepy and atmospheric film to watch on a Sunday afternoon drinking a cup of coffee, and the lead actress Virgine Ledoyn is really nice on the eyes. OK, maybe that's why I gave it a 7 out of 10, but the film's subject matter of missing and/or "scary children" along with the ***SPOILER ALERT*** hidden pregnancy of the lead character, really enhances the viewers investment. Runs a little too long, but as I said, the cinematography is exquisite, so the time passes pleasantly

Saint Ange is a slow paced and atmospheric French horror movie that has got quite a lot of negative critics. Even though the critics are not completely wrong and have some valuable facts, I think that the movie was at least acceptable if not somewhat intriguing which is justified by my rather positive rating.On the negative side you have the fact that there is not much horror in this movie. The opening sequence is great and the weird ending sequences are well done and one or two times you have a somewhat supernatural phenomenon that may surprise you. The rest of the movie focuses on the characters and the locations and even though this is necessary for the story, it gets a little bit boring from time to time. This movie would have needed more thrills and tensions.On the good side you have the solid acting of the three women that stay at the Saint Ange orphanage. The development of these characters is very important to understand the highlight of the movie which is the ending. I'm sure that many critics didn't like this movie because they thought that the ending was strange or surreal but these people didn't get the real sense of the movie as there is much more behind it than it seems but I don't want to reveal too much and suggest you to watch the movie and make up your own mind. In fact, the director said that the movie is rather open to interpretation and can be understood in many different ways. I think this is a strong point of the movie.This is the main reason why I suggest the readers of my contribution to ignore both very negative and very positive critics of this movie. They should not be influenced or have any expectations and watch this movie until the very end and do the effort to think about what they have just seen. It's not so twisted and complicated as it seems, Asian horror cinema for example is way more difficult to approach but also way better in my opinion. Those who expect a thrilling horror movie may be disappointed but those who like slow paced psychological crime or drama movies might actually like this.

For the life of me, I cannot understand the fierce and almost resentful nature of many of the opinions given here. I was fully prepared to see another one of those over-blown affairs that put style over substance and usually bore me to bits after 15 minutes or so of their „Amélie"-type smugness and undeserved self-confidence. In fact. SAINT ANGE is a very careful, very sensitive story of a young woman who struggles with her feelings about her impending motherhood. The ending made perfect sense to me, whether read as a ghost story of sorts or a paranoid fantasy. The actresses are uniformly excellent, particularly Virginie Ledoyen and Lou Doillon, as is Catriona MacColl, who you might still remember from those colorful Fulci extravaganzas from the early eighties. The splendid photography makes good use of the grey and cold blue colours of the orphanage, which is embedded in green and brown tones – Mother Nature. The fantasy ending also introduces a clinical white for good measure. In view of the many cinematic exercises of today that talk their subtexts to death, SAINT ANGE uses a formal elegance that is breath-taking. Actually, I didn't find one single frame that was superfluous. In a way, the film also shares several themes with Laugier's well-received and harrowing MARTYRS, as it is basically another – albeit more tender – tale of a bruised young woman under dire circumstances. The ending of MARTYRS can also be read as a paranoid fantasy, with traces of hope hidden in a complex framework of depressing human depravity. No, I liked SAINT ANGE a lot. And, by the way, Joe Lo Duca – who started with Sam Raimi's THE EVIL DEAD – delivered a haunting and memorable music score. An excellent movie.