by Julian Wood
Worth: $18.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Guillaume Canet, Alba Rohrwacher
Intro:
A beautiful film.
Stephane Brize gives us a masterclass in how to make an unforced and fully engaging drama about relationships and lost love. The French writer/director (Another World) is aided by two perfectly judged performances from his leads, Guillaume Canet and Alba Rohrwacher (La Chimera, My Brilliant Friend).
In the beginning of the film, we see handsome actor Mathieu (Canet) check into an out of season seaside retreat on what looks like the Northern coast of France. He can look out over the misty grey-blue ocean and contemplate his recent choices. He has just ducked the challenge of theatrical work, which he feels might be an act of cowardice. He talks on the phone to his wife in Paris, who tries to persuade him to forgive himself and just rest up. He has been very successful as a film actor after all. The scripts are still being offered. There is gentle humour in the early scenes, where everyone at the spa is overawed by his presence and nags him for selfies etc. If he wanted to lie low for a while, he has come to the wrong place. It is the right place, however, to reconnect with an old love, Alice (Rohrwacher). She too is married and has moved on, but that is not to say that she has lost all feeling for Mathieu. Nor he for her.
The rest of the film explores the wistful sense of what might have been, as they tread nervously around the gentle danger of disrupting their carefully-repaired lives. The film is too good to resolve into a simple will they/won’t they scenario. Through long and often achingly touching scenes, they explore what it means to love and lose and to pick up the pieces. The dialogue is sparse in a realistic way, and there are enough spaces in the text to allow your mind to wander and to compare your life to theirs.
A beautiful film.