One Fine Morning

This female director, guilty of this terrific little drama, has alreaady commited other ones of this kind. So realistic stories, so close to real life, always pulled by awesome, convincing performances. Lea Seydoux, Pascal Gregory, Melvil Poupaud, Nicole Garcia...A dream team in a cast to tell a so gripping, but also painful story about love, the end of life. It is impossible to stay cold blooded, iced, watching such a story. Impossible not to love such a film. I highly prefer seeing this than a most of crime flicks; and I am a great crime movies lover. But French dramas of this kind, I will never get tired of them. Never.

Beautifully written and directed french drama about the possibility or impossibility of love in different relations, for a lover, a child, a father.

I loved the bitter sweet story, explored here with tenderness, lightness, humour and melancholy, reminding me of the best achievements of french cinema by Sautet or Lelouch in the 60s and 70s. Chemistry between Seydoux, who I never found acting more subtle and intense, and Poupaud with great sensitivity, works ideally. Pascal Greggory, one of the greatest french actors of his generation, gives a very touching performance as a father desperately fighting for his dignity against a mind threatening lethal disease, I also loved the natural performance of the little girl playing Seydoux' daughter.

There's hope in the end and we all know again what it's worth living for! Strongly recommended.

I want to describe this film as getting a big hug from the most important person in your life, the one you haven't seen in a long time. There's such warmth mixed with longing. This film is a series of ebbs and flows. Happy and sad - all wrapped up in a beautiful package. You peek into Sandra's life, go on walks around Paris with her, watch her worry about the state of her dad, and let her find solace in the arms of a married man. Emotions live in every frame of this film. Every moment plays with no judgment. Sandra is you or me or anyone, and she's living her life in the best way that she can.

While this may not appeal to many people's tastes, I believe it's a film that can bring out a familiar memory out of everyone: the double-edged sword of caring for the people we love.

This is the best movie I have seen in the cinema so far this year, followed by 'Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom' and 'Piccolo Corpo'.

The story looks simple, but because of the wonderful acting performances of all, especially of Lea Seydoux (much better in this genre of films than in all her Hollywood period), 'Un beau matin' is - in my opinion - already a timeless classic drama.

It's the kind of film that only European countries can make, and it's even more a typical French film. 'Un beau matin' is a very honest and beautiful movie, not bound by time or space. It's a timeless story.

The movie is especially good because the storyline is disarmedly strong and honest, with restrained emotions.

The film is made even more beautiful and stronger by the many silent moments between the dialogues. There is also not too much talking, which I always like a lot.

The expression on Lea Seydoux's face, who plays Sandra (a widow and mother of one daughter), says a lot more than some emotional tantrum.

And then there is the wonderful music of Schubert and the recurring beautiful music of Jan Johansson. Many thanks to director Mia Hansen-Løve for letting me get to know this Swedish pianist, what a discovery!

In the small hall of the small cinema everyone sat full of admiration and listened to the music till the last letters of the final credits were gone.

"Sandra" (Léa Seydoux) is at a crossroads in her life. Her ageing, academic, father (the scene-dominating Pascal Greggory) has been diagnosed with a neuro-degenerative disease that is pretty much robbing him of his quality of life. He is an acclaimed philosopher who finds his increasing lack of ability to think and to remember exasperating. Meantime, she also reconnects with her old friend "Clément" (Melvil Poupaud). He delights in being called a cosmo-chemist (he studies meteoric dust using a rather impressive mass spectrometer). It's clear from the outset that these two have the hots for each other and, despite the fact that he is married with a young son, they embark of quite a lively affair. She is juggling her affection for him while struggling to find an adequate facility for her father; he is having a crisis of conscience as he falls more deeply in love but has his own family to consider. That's about the height of it. Even with the underlying - and rather depressing - analysis of the care provision for her elderly and increasingly failing father adding some gravitas to the film, the story itself is all a rather lacklustre drama centred around two people who are actually quite selfish. They both have responsibilities and as you'd expect, as their relationship develops, these become predictable millstones that we can anticipate all too readily. It has aspects of a soap to it, and though both leads are easy on the eye, I don't think either really have enough here to allow their characters to develop nor to really engage with an audience that has seen this sort of narrative unfold many, many, times before. It looks good - the filming and performances from the younger children are very natural, but at the end I was wondering what was different here. It will work fine on the television, but I doubt I will remember much about it in a fortnight.