This movie is emotionally complex, well-shot and well-edited, with richly developed characters, amazing acting (Anna Paquin as the daughter in by far her best performance), and a wide variety of potential analytic paths. The movie deals with a woman who chooses not to speak a single world (played beautifully and poetically by Holly Hunter), but loves to express herself through playing the piano. She is married off by her father to a man in the middle of nowhere, but falls in love with another man after giving him "piano lessons." The finale is filled with incredible emotion and suspense--while watching it, I had no idea how it would end, which is a testament to the film's ability to create a world that is wholly its own. It is not predictable because we have not really seen a movie quite like it before.It does have some problems though, as with any movie. There are a lot of loose ends that are never tied up, minor characters that are never really fleshed out, and a manner of speech that take a little while to get into. Characters' actions are never fully explained, leaving us as the audience the task of figuring out why they do certain inexplicable, provocative things that they do. Even so, it is highly recommended if you like romances, but not if you don't.
Note: This film played with French subtitles in place of English subtitles where signs were shown or the Maori language was spoken. Even so, I understood about 90% of those subtitles and they did not hinder my enjoyment of the film. It was also shown on the beach, so there may have been audiovisual distractions from time to time.
IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0107822/