--- title: "2 or 3 Things I Know About Her" year: 1967 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/2-or-3-things-i-know-about-her" fi1m_id: "2-or-3-things-i-know-about-her" imdb_id: "tt0060304" tmdb_id: 8074 wikidata_id: "Q232217" fi1m_score: 73 critics_score: 74 critics_reviews: 6 published: "2026-09-26T16:15:21.198545+00:00" updated: "2026-09-26T16:15:21.527983+00:00" region: "EC" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967) Directed by Jean-Luc Godard · 1h 27m · Comedy, Drama ## Identity 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/2-or-3-things-i-know-about-her - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** 2-or-3-things-i-know-about-her - **IMDb ID:** tt0060304 - **TMDB ID:** 8074 - **Wikidata ID:** Q232217 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060304/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/8074, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q232217 **Fi1m score: 73** · Critics 74 from 6 reviews *In a sentence:* Godard whispers about capitalism for 87 minutes and the most convincing thing on screen is a cup of coffee > Godard’s essay on a Paris housewife who sells herself to afford the shopping is a fragmented, whispering, sometimes beautiful film that lectures more than it looks. Raoul Coutard’s colours and one close-up of a coffee cup are what stay with you; the arguments do not. ## Synopsis The new tower blocks on the edge of Paris, and one day in the life of a woman who lives there. Juliette Jeanson (Marina Vlady) is introduced to the camera twice, as actress and as character. She has a flat, a husband, Robert (Roger Montsoret), who mends cars and listens to shortwave broadcasts about Vietnam, and two children, Christophe (Christophe Bourseiller) and Solange (Marie Bourseiller). What she wants is the things in the shop windows, and to pay for them she goes into the city in the afternoons and sells herself, as her friend Marianne (Anny Duperey) does. Over the shops, the café and the hotel room, a narrator (Jean-Luc Godard) whispers questions about the city, the words for things and whether any of it can be filmed. ## Review Jean-Luc Godard made this in the year he was leaving stories behind, and you can watch him do it. The “her” of the title is Juliette Jeanson, a housewife on a new estate outside Paris who sells herself in the afternoons, and it is also Paris itself, being knocked down and rebuilt around her. Godard follows one day in her life, and for most of it he is on the soundtrack, whispering, asking whether a word means what it says and whether a camera can show a thought. It is worth an evening if you have liked one Godard and are prepared to be lectured by another. Raoul Coutard shot it in colour and widescreen, and the pictures say more than the whispering does. The estates are white concrete against a flat grey sky, half built. Indoors, everything is the red, white and blue of the French flag and of the packaging: a washing-up bottle, a packet of chewing gum, a paperback cover. Coutard films the shop shelves the way another cameraman would film a face, in close-up and held, until the products seem to be looking back. Gitt Magrini dresses Vlady in the same primary colours as the shelves she walks past, which is the joke. The scene everyone remembers is in a café. A man stirs his coffee, and Coutard goes in so close that the cup fills the screen, black liquid, foam turning, and Godard whispers over it about consciousness and language and the impossibility of saying anything to anyone. Written down it is a man talking over a cup. Watching it, with the whisper and the slow swirl, we found ourselves holding still, and by the time the foam had settled we were more moved than a beverage has any right to make us. It is the one place in the film where the picture and the talk are the same size. Marina Vlady is asked to do something difficult, which is to play a character and to answer Godard’s questions about the character at the same time, and she does it without a flicker. Godard fed the actors their lines and his questions through an earpiece while the camera ran, and they answer to us, looking straight down the lens. Vlady’s Juliette is a woman who thinks in slogans because slogans are what she has been handed. Anny Duperey’s Marianne is brighter and sadder. Roger Montsoret, as the husband bent over his radio, is the film’s one ordinary man, and the children, Christophe and Marie Bourseiller, deliver their lines with the seriousness only children have. The trouble is that Godard does not trust the pictures. He stops to quote philosophers. He cuts in a magazine cover and asks what it means. A long scene in a hotel room, in which an American (Raoul Lévy) back from Vietnam arranges two women like furniture, goes on until we stopped being appalled and started counting the minutes, and we were annoyed with ourselves and then annoyed with him. Françoise Collin and Chantal Delattre cut the film into hard blocks, with bursts of Beethoven stopped mid-phrase, and the rhythm is thrilling for twenty minutes and then simply the way things are. And a film about a woman who sells herself has little curiosity about how she feels afterwards. Godard is interested in what she buys. Set against his own run, this comes after *Pierrot le fou* and in the same year as *La Chinoise* and [*Weekend*](https://film.one/film/weekend), and it is the last of his films for some while in which the people are as interesting as the ideas. [*Vivre sa vie*](https://film.one/film/vivre-sa-vie) had covered prostitution with a heart; this covers it with a notebook. Some critics place it much higher than we do, and we understand why. We think the lecture wins too often. At 87 minutes it does not overstay. Watch it in the afternoon, with the curtains open, and let the whispering wash past when it needs to. The cup of coffee will still be there. *Fi1m score 73, published 26 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics admire this as one of Godard’s sharpest and most inventive essays on modern life, and the praise clusters in one place: the coffee cup. Several reviews single out the close-up of swirling espresso, in which an ordinary object becomes an image of consciousness and of people failing to reach one another. Raoul Coutard’s widescreen photography of a Paris under redevelopment is admired, as is the way the film runs fiction and documentary together until the two are hard to separate. The reservations are about story and consistency. The AV Club finds the narrative thin and the style repetitive, though it still finds something human in the whispered reflections on architecture and design. The Guardian, broadly favourable, notes that the film lurches between the naive and the sophisticated, the silly and the profound. The spread is narrow: five reviews are positive, one is mixed, and no one dismisses it. ## Straight answers **Is 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her worth watching?** *2 or 3 Things I Know About Her* is worth watching if you enjoy Godard’s fragmented, questioning cinema; we score it 73 out of 100. Raoul Coutard’s colour photography and a surprisingly moving close-up of coffee reward the patience, but the whispered lectures too often interrupt pictures that already say enough. **How long is 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, and what is it rated?** *2 or 3 Things I Know About Her* runs 1h 27m. It is a comedy and drama film. **Where can I watch 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her in Ecuador?** *2 or 3 Things I Know About Her* is not on any streaming or rental service in Ecuador at the moment. It is available in 42 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily. **How does 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her compare to Vivre Sa Vie?** *2 or 3 Things I Know About Her* is more interested in consumer goods and philosophical questions than the feelings of its protagonist; we prefer [*Vivre Sa Vie*](https://film.one/film/vivre-sa-vie) for its greater emotional force. Both concern prostitution, but Anna Karina gives the earlier film a warmth that the later film’s striking images and whispered commentary only occasionally match. **What should I watch after 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her?** After *2 or 3 Things I Know About Her*, try [*Vivre sa vie*](https://film.one/film/vivre-sa-vie) (1962, Fi1m 86): Godard’s earlier film on the same subject, with Anna Karina and rather more feeling. Then [*Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles*](https://film.one/film/jeanne-dielman-23-quai-du-commerce-1080-bruxelles) (1975, Fi1m 72): Akerman gives the housewife three whole hours and nobody whispers over her; and [*Playtime*](https://film.one/film/playtime) (1967, Fi1m 88): The same glass-and-concrete Paris of the sixties, played for slapstick rather than theory. ### Reviews we read (6) - **Slant Magazine**, Bill Weber (3.5/4): The review is strongly positive about Godard’s probing, formally inventive film. It especially praises the swirling espresso-cup sequence for turning an everyday object into a cosmic image of miscommunication and consciousness. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/2-or-3-things-i-know-about-her/) - **Empire**, David Parkinson (75/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a biting and powerful reflection on modern society. He singles out its contemplative coffee-cup close-up as its most telling image. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/deux-ou-trois-choses-que-je-sais-delle-review/) - **The Guardian**, Philip French (70/100, inferred): French presents the film as a pivotal, intellectually ambitious work, though one that shifts between the naive and the sophisticated, the silly and the profound. He singles out Raoul Coutard’s consistently beautiful widescreen images amid the film’s depiction of impersonal urban change. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/News_Story/Critic_Review/Observer_review/0,,518401,00.html) - **Time Out** (70/100, inferred): The capsule presents the film as invigorating. It singles out the blend of fiction and documentary, while suggesting the story is more complex than its premise. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/newyork/film/2-or-3-things-i-know-about-her) - **The AV Club**, Noel Murray (60/100, inferred): Murray finds the film’s narrative skimpy and its style somewhat samey, but sees an enduring human element in Godard’s work. He singles out the whispered reflections on modern architecture and design, alongside lingering images of logos and coffee. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/une-femme-mariee-made-in-u-s-a-2-or-3-things-i-kno-1798206552) - **Eye for Film**, Chris (85/100, inferred): The critic finds the film an intellectually rich and beautiful work, especially effective in challenging fiction and consumerist ideology. They single out its questioning of reality, supported by Godard’s use of language, performance, and visual metaphor. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/2-or-3-things-i-know-about-her-film-review-by-chris) ## Details - **Director:** Jean-Luc Godard - **Director:** Jean-Luc Godard - **Writer:** Jean-Luc Godard - **Cinematography:** Raoul Coutard - **Editor:** Françoise Collin, Chantal Delattre - **Costume design:** Gitt Magrini - **Producer:** Anatole Dauman, Raoul Lévy - **Cast:** Marina Vlady as Juliette Jeanson; Jean-Luc Godard as Narrator (voice); Anny Duperey as Marianne; Roger Montsoret as Robert Jeanson; Raoul Lévy as John Bogus, the American; Jean Narboni as Roger; Yves Beneyton as Young Man; Juliet Berto as Girl Talking to Robert - **Runtime:** 1h 27m - **First release (France):** 17 March 1967 - **Genres:** Comedy, Drama ## Where to watch in Ecuador Not streaming, renting or buying in Ecuador at the last check. Also available in: AE, AR, AT, BE, BG, CH, CL, CO, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IL, IN, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, PA, PH, PL, RO, RS, SE, SG, TH, TR, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Vivre sa vie* (1962), Fi1m 86: Godard’s earlier film on the same subject, with Anna Karina and rather more feeling — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/vivre-sa-vie.md) - *Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles* (1975), Fi1m 72: Akerman gives the housewife three whole hours and nobody whispers over her — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/jeanne-dielman-23-quai-du-commerce-1080-bruxelles.md) - *Playtime* (1967), Fi1m 88: The same glass-and-concrete Paris of the sixties, played for slapstick rather than theory — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/playtime.md) - *Belle de Jour* (1967), Fi1m 86: Deneuve’s afternoons in a brothel, with Buñuel more interested in her dreams than her shopping — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/belle-de-jour.md) - *Sans Soleil* (1983), Fi1m 82: Marker’s essay film, a voice over the world, with more tenderness than Godard allows himself — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/sans-soleil.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/2-or-3-things-i-know-about-her