Alicia I love this movie so much

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

SnoopyStyle It's July 7, 2005. There is a terrorist bus bombing in London. Widower Elisabeth Sommers (Brenda Blethyn) can't contact her daughter Jane. She travels to London to search for her. African Muslim Ousmane (Sotigui Kouyaté) arrives from France to look for his son Ali. He has not seen him since he was six.Essentially, the story is mostly known from the start. There is a little reveal but it's not that compelling. The movie has a solid sense of the people of the city. Blethyn is once again the old close-minded woman. It's a tired character that she needs to modify. It's getting repetitive. Otherwise, the acting is solid. The movie is slow because the ending is inevitable. It does give a realistic portrayal of modern London. As a story, it is very predictable.

stephanlinsenhoff London July 7 2005. Elisabeth, a good woman. a humble churchgoer, respecting the law. Racist? No! Not before 7/7! Alarmed by the reporting on her secure Guernsey and that her daughter does not answer her phone, Elisabeth leaves for the city if everything is well. It is not. She visits her daughter the first time, wondering: "Is this the right address?" - surrounded by Islamic foreign strangers. Her daughters landlord, gives her the key for her daughters flat. During her search she encounters the black African, french speaking Monsieur Ousmane: searching his son Ali. They have to discover that their children, her daughter Jane and his son Ali have an affair, the fathers son living with the mothers daughter in her flat. And her daughter learns Arabic: "Who speaks Arabic?" ask the very British Christian mother: hardly looking at the searching father, and if: 'von oben'. But has eventually to accept the unacceptable, secure at home on her British Island where the different otherness is never an issue; human as she herself: "Our lives aren't that different", she discovers. And that her British daughter, visiting her on her save island last Christmas; she never told: why? The searching mother and the searching father, guided by their children's spirit are searching the other to find themselves otherness. The director: "Most important was the central encounter." Fot the sake when truth is revealed: the mothers heartbreaking break-down and beside her the fate accepting father. Mutual respect and in need for each other when the truth of sorrow has to be shared. No body for the grave. So different their first and last encounter. Passing him, without a single look, leave alone seeing him. A nobody. An then: her embrace. Both return to their duty, the farm and the forest. Not the same: different. Against the backdrop of not only Oslo and Breivik: also the own family's racism ('What would I be on Titanic and as she sank, what would I do?', the closing words of the documentary Titanic & me). Behind color, behind believe, behind we are educated for: never for the encounter in the aftermath of 7/7. Why the London-Oslo-family and other disastrous front mirrors without the back mirror? 'This quest to find their children alive forces them to unite', signals the director Rachid Bouchareb: discovering themselves behind the mask.

jandesimpson POSSIBLE SPOILERS Apart from genres that I don't much care for such as musicals and westerns (John Ford excepted) I don't really have any taboos about what I watch. I generally close my eyes when anyone is about to slash their wrists but that's a matter of personal squeamishness rather than taboo. Provided it has quality, I generally lap up the rest of the film, blood and all. There is however one type of film that I find suspect to the point of avoidance and that is the dramatised account of tragedies and disasters that are so near in time that it casts the viewer into the role of voyeur of people still experiencing tremendous personal grief. Films on 9/11 certainly fall into this category. My sole reason for watching "London River" which deals with the 2005 London terrorist attacks was to catch a performance by Brenda Blethyn, a British actress for whom I have a tremendous admiration. I can only say that my cinema going experience would have been that much the poorer, had I not made this decision, such is the power, sincerity and integrity of this highly charged work. Although the horrendous events of 7/7 are an integral part of the film, it touches on so much more in its presentation of two disparate characters drawn together in a common quest, she a farming widow living on Guernsey, he an African forestry worker from France. In the ordinary way their only remote point of contact, apart from language, would be their proximity to the land, but 7/7 has drawn them to a neighbourhood of North London in their anxiety to discover what might have happened to their children on that terrible day. Even before they meet we are made aware of the woman's deep seated mistrust of other cultures and everything Islamic in particular. Her unease and expressions of bigotry only intensify the more she comes to realise that her daughter may have been cohabiting with a Muslim. Ultimately it is the subtle way that a common tragedy can enable a dignified respect by two people for one another to come about that gives the last half hour of "London River" its tremendous poignancy. The farewell between cinema's possibly most unlikely couple is something very precious and unforgettable

PipAndSqueak Hmm, I was in London on 7.7.05. I was trying to get down the road where the bus was blown up. Does this film cause me to recall how I felt that day, what I saw that day? No. Sorry folks, this is a very thin treatment of a landmark event in London's history. It annoyed me to the same extent that it consciously tried to pull at my heart strings. That's too much. I hate being manipulated like that. I'm being generous not damning this film because the two principal actors give good enough portrayals of the characters despite the poor standard of writing in the script. One of them was constantly reminding me of Giacommetti sculptures - a distraction from the criminal bloopers that had not been cut; e.g. a post September 2007 car registration number clearly visible centre screen for several long seconds. There is no story arc worth mentioning. You know how it's going to end and quite frankly, it's hard to care other than feeling moved by the loss of life. A missed opportunity for something much better.