ROMANTIC DRAMA; 1hr 55min (French with subtitles)
STARRING: Guillaume Canet, Alba Rohrwacher
Déjà vu: Canet and Rohrwacher
Fame is a Hydra, ravenous and insatiable. Crises are its fodder and with every mobile phone a camera, there is no escaping it. Movie star Mathieu (Canet) has checked into a plush health spa after bailing from a big-deal stage play one month before it is due to open. For all his weary, reflexive charm, he is acutely depressed and wants only to be left alone. No chance of that with every rando and their mother angling for a selfie.
The coastal retreat in which the spa is set is wintry and grey, which at least reflects Mathieu’s state of mind as he gazes moodily at nothing. Conflicted by his withdrawal from the play, disinterested in potential films and emotionally disconnected from his mile-a-minute news-anchor wife, at 49 he is trapped at a crossroads he didn’t see coming.
When he meets up for tea with pianist Alice (Rohrwacher), an ex-girlfriend who lives in the area and of course knows he is there, their conversation is careful and neutral. At a second meeting, the gloves are off — Alice may be married with a teenage daughter and resigned to her isolating choices, but she hasn’t forgotten how Mathieu’s treatment of her 15 years ago “left me in ruins.”
Did Mathieu make the mistake of his storied life? Although Alice, too, is no stranger to frustration and regret, she is naturally warm and embracing with the sunbeam smile of hard-earned serenity, her work in an aged-care home infinitely more real than the facile screenplays Mathieu is struggling to wade through. Their dance at a wedding, as intimate as any love scene, wordlessly encapsulates what they can never have. Director Stéphane Brizé (Mademoiselle Chambon) and his co-writer, Marie Drucker, aren’t trawling for grand gestures. It’s in the unspoken that Mathieu and Alice come together, the monumental landscape overwhelming them both.
