Bon Voyage - Bis hierher und noch weiter

Enya Baroux's On ira is a tender, darkly humorous road movie about death, secrets, and strained family ties. Hélène Vincent shines as Marie, a terminally ill grandmother secretly traveling to Switzerland for assisted suicide, dragging along her clueless son Bruno and rebellious granddaughter Anna under the false promise of an inheritance.

What unfolds is a bittersweet journey marked by awkward humor, buried resentments, and emotional thawing. Baroux resists melodrama, letting the characters speak through silence and discomfort. The film is grounded, visually unflashy, and all the more affecting for it.

With strong performances, especially from Vincent and David Ayala as the gentle caregiver Rudy, On ira explores mortality with grace and wit. Quiet, offbeat, and deeply human-it lingers long after the credits roll.

In Europa, some movies about assisted suicide were made in France ("quelques heures de Printemps" )and in Germany ("und Morgen Mittag ,bin ich tot" ) but as it is illegal in both countries, death takes place in Switzerland .In the USA , "blackbird " dealt with the same subject :a woman (Susan Sarandon) asked her husband-doctor ,Sam Neill,to help her to die , refusing to atrociously suffer.

Thus ,it's not the first time Hélène Vincent has portrayed a terminally-ill woman who wants to die with dignity ;in "quelques heures de printemps" ,she played opposite Vincent Lindon who found it hard to accept the harsh reality .

In "on ira" ,the situation is different because the heroine does not bring herself to tell her son and her granddaughter the reason of the trip to Switzerland .They will discover it by chance (the way the granddaughter learns the truth will remind the old melodramas buffs "dark victory" (1939)starring Bette Davis)

The treatment is different too: whilst "quelques heures de printemps" was a true drama , "on ira" walks a fine line between comedy and tragedy ; the terminally-ill lady wants to do like the Bretchian "shameless old lady " (Allio,1970): to savor the precious pleasures of life: taking a bath in the lake ,she who cannot swim , playing monopoly and bowling, even dancing with the gypsies who could teach a lesson or two to the "gadjos" ,as for their vision of death .Miss Baroux ,be blessed for using a French song (whereas 90% of her colleagues opt for a song in English ) ,Desireless's "voyage ,voyage" a most adequate song for such a subject!

It's essentially a road movie , but the last great journey 's got a lot of comic relieves in store : Lennon(sic) the pet rat ,the misadventures of the broke father, the granddaughter who experiments her first periods and who doesn't know what to buy before realizing her account is empty;there's also a magnificent ellipsis for the denouement .

Hélène Vincent gives a César-calibre performance and the rest of the cast is up to scratch ; actress Enya Baroux becomes one of the most promising directors of the contemporary French cinema.