{"id":19545,"date":"2023-01-26T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-26T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=19545"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:11:35","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:11:35","slug":"review-one-fine-morning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/review-one-fine-morning\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: One Fine Morning<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sandra (L\u00e9a Seydoux) lives a cluttered but satisfying life. She works as a translator. She\u2019s a widow and a mother. And she tends to her blind and increasingly dementia-addled father, who was once a philosophy professor, but is now a shell of his former self. She keeps very busy, so it doesn\u2019t seem to bother her much that she\u2019s single. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then she runs into Cl\u00e9ment (Melvil Poupaud), an old friend \u2013 of hers and her late husband \u2013 and father to one of her daughter\u2019s classmates. They get on well, but there\u2019s something there, an unspoken attraction they\u2019ve never acted on, because he\u2019s married. And then they act on it, with a first kiss that is so perfectly teed up and executed (delicate, funny, sexy, warm) that you can\u2019t blame them for going further. He comes over to her apartment for sex, which is tricky with her daughter sleeping in the next room (they\u2019ve barely started making out when the little girl calls out, \u201cI\u2019m thirsty!\u201d). When the time comes, she\u2019s worried \u201cI\u2019ve forgotten how.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t forget,\u201d he replies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI did.\u201d (Spoiler: she didn\u2019t.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the many lovely qualities of Mia Hansen-L\u00f8ve\u2019s One Fine Morning<\/em> is how evocatively it dramatizes that delightful period in a new relationship when you simply cannot keep your hands off each other. And the casual and physical nature of the relationship seems to suit Sandra just fine; it\u2019s not like she has the energy for an emotional bond, or a full-time boyfriend. She, her sister, and her mother are moving her father into assisted living, which takes a psychological toll on all of them \u2013 but it seems to hit Sandra especially hard, sorting through all of the things and figuring out what to do with his books. \u201cI feel closer to my father with his books than with him<\/em>,\u201d she explains. (The logistics of library management are one of the film\u2019s many accidental but noteworthy commonalities with last year\u2019s Vortex<\/a><\/em>.)\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But the more emotional and vulnerable her family situation becomes, the more she finds herself wanting more from Cl\u00e9ment. But, again, he\u2019s married. \u201cIt\u2019s a nightmare,\u201d he says of that relationship. \u201cI try not to burden you.\u201d And so they slip away when they can, and make the most of what they have, and they send each other sweet texts, but she begins to resent him, just a little.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hansen-L\u00f8ve\u2019s perceptive screenplay understands how these relationships wind up and unspool, how things that begin cool and shrugging, slowly but surely, are not. She doesn\u2019t judge either Sandra or Cl\u00e9ment, which is important, because this isn\u2019t a story about fidelity or morality, or even, really, about love. It\u2019s about getting in over your head, and being swept away in the process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her script is also structurally sharp \u2013 she tells these two stories, of an ending in Sandra\u2019s life and and (possibly) a beginning, simultaneously, understanding how the walls one puts up, the neat boxes that we used to compartmentalize our emotional, physical, and intellectual needs, tend to crumple up like paper under the slightest bit of pressure. It\u2019s not a plotty film \u2013 things don\u2019t so much happen as life unfurls, organically. Much like Hansen-L\u00f8ve\u2019s 2015 Isabelle Huppert vehicle Things to Come<\/em>, it\u2019s less a showcase for an earth-shattering story than a truly gifted actor; there are certain people who can hold our attention doing just about anything onscreen, and Huppert is one, and Seydoux is another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So to call One Fine Morning<\/em> a slice-of-life drama seems inadequate, a phrase that minimizes what Hansen-L\u00f8ve\u2019s doing. This is a slice of a specific life, one that looks ordinary, but is unique and complicated and sometimes harrowing, particularly in private moments when no one\u2019s watching. So pay attention to the look on her face as the elevator door closes, or as she smiles and cries on the bus, her joy curdling in the pain. There\u2019s more to this performance than it seems. Same goes for the movie. \"\"\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A-<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

“One Fine Morning” is in theaters Friday.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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