History Film / AVeryLongEngagement

* LoveTriangle: A messy one between the Gordeses and Bastoche. Gordes cannot have children, while his wife can. So to retire from the war his wife must get pregnant...from someone else. Enters the picture Bastoche, his best friend. To say that things [[LawOfInverseFertility do not go]] [[Your heating heart as planned]] is understatement.

* LawOfInverseFertility: An important plot-point for Bastoche's arc. His friend Corporal Gordes is infertile but has legally adopted all the children from his wife's previous marriage. Another child would mean for him to leave the service...and drama ensues.

The story set in 1919. Mathilde (Creator/AudreyTautou) was engaged to her childhood sweetheart Manech (Gaspard Ulliel) when he was enlisted to fight in [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI the Great War]]. Manech tried to get excused from duty by getting his hand shot, but he was instead convicted of self-mutilation and left to die with four other soldiers in the no-man's land between the French and German trenches. Mathilde, however, refuses to believe that Manech is dead, and sets out on an investigation to find him. Along the way, she meets people who are also connected to the five condemned soldiers, including vengeful prostitute Tina Lombardi (Creator/MarionCotillard) and widow Élodie Gordes (Creator/JodieFoster), and learns their stories.

* AmateurSleuth: Mathilde grows some shades of this while digging into the circumstances of Manech's disappeareance. While she hires a private detective, she handles the investigations far better.

Creator/JodieFoster, speaking French, appears as the former lover of a soldier who guarded Manech the prisoner.

The story set in 1919. Mathilde (Creator/AudreyTautou) was engaged to her childhood sweetheart Manech (Gaspard Ulliel) when he was enlisted to fight in [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI the Great War.]] Manech tried to get excused from duty by getting his hand shot, but he was instead convicted of self-mutilation and left to die with four other soldiers in the no-man's land between the French and German trenches. Mathilde, however, refuses to believe that Manech is dead, and sets out on an investigation to find him. Along the way, she meets people who are also connected to the five condemned soldiers, including vengeful prostitute Tina Lombardi (Creator/MarionCotillard), and learns their stories.

* ShellShockedVeteran: Given that it's a film set in the trenches, we see a lot of these, but most explicitly Manech who loses his grip on reality after a few too many close calls (see LudicrousGibs above) and eventually becomes amnesiac.

* CrisisPointHospital: Benoît Notre-Dame is brought to a blimp hangar that has been converted into a field hospital crammed with injured French soldier. There's still a blimp [[MadeOfExplodium full of hydrogen]] in it, and the hangar is within range of enemy artillery... cue the inevitable explosion. Benoît has enough time to barricade himself behind mattresses in a room with a metal door and survives.

* SpitefulSpit: Tina Lombardi spits on the blade her lover uses to stab her former pimp. This is a FiveSecondsForeshadowing on when she does the same thing...with the responsible of her lover's death.

* {{Asshole Victim}}s: Tina Lombardi's victims. Thouvenel was a ruthless sergeant who shot her boyfriend dead as he tried surrendering to the Germans, and Lavrouye was an {{armchair|military}} major who was lazy, incompetent and [[spoiler: destroyed the presidential pardon letter that was sent to spare the life of the condemned soldiers, allowing their execution. And he did so while taking his bath out of pure EvilIsPetty.]]

* CatScare: Mathilde's cat jumps from the window and starts a fire. [[spoiler: It was actuallt Benoît Notre-Dame sneaking into her room, contemplating murdering her in her sleep.]]

* FemmeFatale: Tina Lombardi to a tee; a prostitute who goes about assassinating the people involved with the death of her boyfriend [[spoiler: and ruthless procurer]].

* LawOfInverseFertility: An important plot-point for Bastoche's arc. His friend Corporal Gordes is infertile but has legally adopted all the children from his wife's previous marriage. Another child would mean for him to leave the
* LingerieScene: Mathilde has one or two.

* LoveTriangle: A messy one between the Gordeses and Bastoche. Gordes cannot have children, while his wife can. So to retire from the war his wife must get pregnant...from someone else. Enters the picture Bastoche, his best friend. To say that things [[LawOfInverseFertility do not go]] [[as planned]] is understatement.

** Biscotte and his wife need another baby to make him retire from war according to law. But he's unfertile (they adopted the other children). Biscotte's friends Bastoche enters the picture, doing them a favor. A love affair that ruin a ,arriage and a friendship ensue, but no baby along with them. Then both men die leaving her a widow with 5 kids.
** [[spoiler: Tina Lombardi's revenge arc, since before her execution she receives a message from her late Ange telling her to go on with her life and hat revenge is empty.]]

* SpitefulSpit: Tina Lombardi spits on the blade her lover uses to stab her former pimp. This is a FiveMinutesForeshadowing on when she does the same thing...with the responsible of her lover's death.

* AmnesiacLover: [[spoiler:Manech turns out to be alive, but amnesiac. Mathilde reunites with him at the end.]]
* {{Asshole Victim}}s: Tina Lombardi's victims. Thouvenel was a ruthless sergeant who shot her boyfriend dead as he tried surrendering to the Germans, and Lavrouye was an {{armchair|military}} major who destroyed the presidential pardon letter that was sent to spare the life of the condemned soldiers, allowing their execution. And he did so while taking his bath out of pure EvilIsPetty.

* DwindlingParty: The fates of the five soldiers are revealed slowly as the story unravels. Some of them manage to survive.

* FanService: Creator/AudreyTautou, in a few scenes. In one in particular, she looks like she should be riding a clamshell.

* GenteelInterbellumSetting: Most of the events of the film are set in 1920, all the better for MoodWhiplash in the flashbacks to the Western Front.

* {{Gasshole}}: The dog of Mathilde's uncle and aunt regularly farts. Somehow, in pure Jean-Pierre Jeunet humor fashion, Mathilde's aunt interprets it as a good sign ("Dog fart, joy on my head").

* InsistentTerminology:
-->'''Maître Rouvières''': Tes parents...
-->'''Mathilde''': ''Feu'' mes parents. (a French expression to insist on the fact that her parents are dead, similar to ''late'')
* {{Jerkass}}: Lavrouye, the officer who ignored Poincaré's pardon and sent the soldiers into the no-man's land.
* KeepTheHomeFiresBurning

* LingerieScene
* LostInTranslation: The three M's, in French, stand for "Manech aime Mathilde." (aime, which means loves, sounds like the letter M) This carries over into English as "Manech's marrying Mathilde."
* LudicrousGibs: A horribly realistic version, with Manech showered with the giblets of another soldier after said soldier gets blown up by a shell.
* MeaningfulEcho: The BookEnds, "Does it hurt when you walk?"
* MeaningfulName: Germain Pire. "Pire" means "worse" in French. The character's catchphrase in French is "Pire que la fouine" (worse than weasel), to show how his private investigator activity is SeriousBusiness.

* PrivateDetective: Germain Pire.

* TheVamp: Tina Lombardi.

* {{Asshole Victim}}s: Tina Lombardi's victims. Thouvenel was a ruthless sergeant who shot her boyfriend dead as he tried surrendering to the Germans, and Lavrouye was an {{armchair|military}} commandant who destroyed the presidential pardon letter that was sent to spare the life of the condemned soldiers, allowing their execution. And he did so while taking his bath out of pure EvilIsPetty.

* DirtyOldMan: Major François Lavrouye.

* DwindlingParty: The fates of the five soldiers are revealed slowly as the story unravels.

* EpicMovie: By French cinema standards, it surely is one.

* IWillFindYou: The driving force of the plot.

* {{Asshole Victim}}s: Tina Lombardi's victims. Thouvenel was a ruthless sergeant who shot her boyfriend dead as he tried surrendering to the Germans, the other is an {{armchair|military}} commandant who destroyed the presidential pardon letter that was sent to spare the life of the condemned soldiers, allowing their execution. And he did so while taking his bath out of pure EvilIsPetty.

* AmnesiacLover: [[spoiler: Manech.]]
* {{Asshole Victim}}s: Tina Lombardi's victims. All of them.
* BestServedCold: Tina Lombardi's vengeance.

* BreakTheCutie: Manech, ''hard''.

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/longengeagement_3936.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:250:WarIsHell on love life...]]

[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/longengeagement_3936.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:WarIsHell on love life...]]

[[quoteright:250:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/longengeagement_3936.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:250:WarIsHell on love life...]]

* KillEmAll: The scenes where the poor French soldiers go over the top and are completely obliterated by German machine gun fire within seconds.

* RaceLift: In the original novel, Mathilde and Manech are from the French Basque country (département Landes), in the film they are from Brittany. And in the novel Ange is not a Corsican, but a son of Italian immigrants born in Marseilles.

* ShellShockedVeteran: Given that it's a film set in the trenches, we see a lot of these, but most explicitly Manech who loses his grip on reality after a few too many close calls (see LudicrousGibs above).

* SympatheticMurderer: Tina Lombardi.

* WarIsHell: A French film, with flashbacks set in the trenches of the battle of the Somme, during a war where France lost 9% of its male population and left untold thousands crippled and emotionally scarred? You bet it's hell.

* EasyAmnesia: Played with. We don't know what exactly caused the amnesia, so a realistic cause is possible. However, both procedural and declarative memory seem to be affected. ("He even had to learn to read and write again.")

[[caption-width-right:250:WarIsHell on the love life...]]