Uma Bela Manhã

"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.

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.

I liked this movie because I like Lea Seydoux, like the subdued yet deep acting of French actors and their stories, yet struggled to understand how it ended and what the point was. It felt like I rode a bus and really enjoying the ride, waiting to reach the final destination, only to get there and not remember why I went, to begin with. I struggle, even now, to make it to the requisite 600 words to create a review, because that is the point-- I do not know what else to say. I am by no means dull and have a penchant for watching international movies that are quite gems, but did not see what the whole point at the end was. I did thoroughly enjoy the characters of this movie. Lea is, as always, an outstanding actress.

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.

There are challenges that your life has had presented, large hurdles that have left you less contented, after becoming a young widow, there's just you and a young kiddo, and now your fathers progressively, getting more demented. But those close all lend a hand and give support, as your father's moved around from port to port, an old friend becomes much more, becoming someone you adore, though he's married, and you're not sure if he'll abort.

The perpetually magnifique Léa Seydoux plays Sandra, as she juggles a child, an aging father and a new lover, in a tale that might hit home if you have connections in part or in whole with her plight, but ultimately is a pretty ordinary affair or variation on often encountered themes.