[Rating: Solid Rock Fist Up]
In Theaters Friday, March 3
The mid-life crisis is so passé, so boomer: kids these days have their shattering existential moment long before their life’s intermission. One Fine Morning isn’t a “breakdown” movie, though, or some kind of exercise in dramatic torture porn where the lead becomes a sin-eater for the audience. Instead, director Mia Hansen-Løve has crafted a quiet, intuitive exploration of early-adulthood ennui, and the sudden, hidden moments of happiness and despair that accompany its appearance.
When the audience meets her, Sandra Kienzler (Léa Seydoux) has a lot on her plate, but seems to be managing. A single mother to a pre-teen daughter whose busy work schedule as a translator in Paris leaves little time for self-love, Sandra spends what little free time she has caring for her elderly father, Georg (Pascal Greggory), who is declining fast. Georg suffers from Benson’s Disease, which has robbed him of his sight and is increasingly degrading his cognitive functions. George lives alone despite having remarried, and relies more and more on his daughters and ex-wife as his conditions worsens.
The mental and physical stress of Sandra’s lifestyle has left her a bit unmoored and emotionally vacant, and while she’s an attentive and loving mother to her child, it’s not until she runs into a long-lost friend that she begins to feel alive again. This man, Clément (Melvil Poupaud), is an old acquaintance with an estranged wife and child, and while their relationship had always been platonic, something about this moment in time takes hold of both. They begin a relationship, and while life may feel like it is stopping for the pair whenever they embrace and give in to their desires, both find that the world each is escaping via these dalliances remains very much in motion.
At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be a lot going on in One Fine Morning. There isn’t a grand dramatic moment that stuns the audience or hits them with a sudden reveal, but rather the slow drip of everyday pain, confusion, joy, and longing. In another movie, there would be a confrontation between the wife and mistress, or a big set-piece at the hospital when Georg gets loose or attacks a nurse, but Hansen-Løve is wise enough to side-step all of this to instead focus on the micro-drama garnishing the edges of several lives easily ignored (even by the principles).
A scene where Georg is having an episode and standing on a building ledge would make for a big moment, but Hansen-Løve gets far more mileage out of a wordless moment in an elevator when Sandra sees her father wandering the halls of the hospital after a visit, yet doesn’t have the stamina to go back to him. Likewise, when exploring the fractures in Sandra and Clément’s always tenuous relationship, the film and script eschew screaming matches and confrontations in favor quiet, hidden conversations that are designed to stay out of earshot of the kids.
As the film moves through its second act, and the show-stopping scenes fail to materialize (making way instead for small moments of hidden joy or despondency), the intent of all of this comes into focus. Life is full of small victories, defeats, and draws, yet things rarely slow down enough for a person to absorb or deal with them as they might prefer. Likewise, the moments when a person prepares for a stunning, memorable epiphany often fall flat: like when a mother and daughter climb towards a grand city view, yet the kid couldn’t care less.
And while the story is simple in its essence, the construction of all its moving pieces is anything but. The script (also by Hansen-Løve) is deliberate in all things, starting with the profession of its principles (and even their accoutrement). Georg is a retired philosophy professor who has lost his ability to think and speak clearly; Sandra is a translator who has difficulty expressing herself; Clément, an absent husband and father, is a cosmo-physicist who studies the fragments of stars fallen to Earth. All three are waging a war against what they are at their core versus what they are giving to the world, and it is the blink-and-you-missed it reactions to these struggles that define the film’s larger message.
Seydoux has the most on her plate amongst the cast, yet there’s never a false gesture or word from her throughout the film’s 110 minutes. Most actors would make a meal out of the scenes where she tries to explain the nature of her relationship with Clément to her daughter, or when she fumbles through a live translation because of an unexpected text, yet Seydoux consistently goes against the grain in these scenes, allowing for just a sigh or pained glance to express an ocean of emotions. Like her clothes and haircut, which speak to a woman who has chosen function over any sense of fashion, she just doesn’t have time for any of that, and it’s this struggle against expression that serves as the backbone of the piece.
Admittedly slow in some places, though always seemingly in service to the broader narrative and character(s) exploration, One Fine Morning moves with the measured pace of a real life in motion (and crisis). Deliberate and precise, the movie pulls no punches while never going for the knockout blow: using the fractured reality of an oppressive, segmented 21st century that doesn’t give a person any time for a breakdown as the villain (if indeed there is one). An exploration of life’s most desperate yet cherished moments squeezed between the frenzied rush of a world that only seems to be spinning faster and faster, One Fine Morning is as honest as it is poignant.
“Obvious Child” is the debut novel of Warren Cantrell, a film and music critic based out of Seattle, Washington. Mr. Cantrell has covered the Sundance and Seattle International Film Festivals, and provides regular dispatches for Scene-Stealers and The Playlist. Warren holds a B.A. and M.A. in History, and his hobbies include bourbon drinking, novel writing, and full-contact kickboxing.
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