Certificate: 15 (strong sex)
Running Time: 113 mins
UK Distributor: MUBI
WHO’S IN ONE FINE MORNING?
Léa Seydoux, Pascal Greggory, Melvil Poupaud, Nicole Garcia, Fejria Deliba, Camille Leban Martins, Sarah Le Picard, Pierre Meunier
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Mia Hansen-Løve (director, writer), Philippe Martin, Gerhard Meixner, Roman Paul and David Thion (producers), Denis Lenoir (cinematographer), Marion Monnier (editor)
WHAT IS ONE FINE MORNING ABOUT?
A single mother (Seydoux) deals with her ailing father (Greggory) and her married new lover (Poupard)…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON ONE FINE MORNING?
For filmmakers everywhere, the medium is an exquisite form of self-expression, which allows them to hone their unique skills and realise their abstract thoughts or personal memories in front of a camera. French filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve has certainly expressed herself in many ways across her career, Trojan-horsing a number of her own semi-autobiographical experiences into films like Things to Come, Father of My Children, Eden, Bergman Island and now One Fine Morning, all of which feature aspects of her own life in one form or another.
It is the latter film, though, which perhaps sees Hansen-Løve at her most personal, as it is partially inspired by what she went through with her own family, and offers a real glimpse into the emotional difficulties that she and others surely must have been through. However, the film isn’t a complete downer, for it’s also a rather charming and sweet-natured romance that neatly offsets the weightier material.
The film follows Sandra (Léa Seydoux), a Parisian translator and widowed mother who cares not just for her young daughter Linn (Camille Leban Martins), but also her aging father Georg (French acting veteran Pascal Greggory). A former philosophy professor, he’s recently been diagnosed with Benson’s syndrome, a rare neurodegenerative disease that greatly affects one’s sight and memory, to where he’s no longer able to do anything by himself and must be placed in assisted care.
As Sandra and her family attempt to find a suitable home for Georg, she happens upon Clément (Melvil Poupard), a cosmo-chemist and an old friend who’s married with a young son, but that doesn’t stop an unmistakable spark of chemistry flowing between them, and soon the two of them ignite a passionate affair that is hindered by his fluid devotion to his wife.
Like Hansen-Løve’s other films, One Fine Morning isn’t truly autobiographical but still feels deeply personal for the filmmaker, especially as it slowly shows the devastating emotional effects of caring for an elderly parent, who in this case is not even close to the person they once were. Hansen-Løve, and by extension actor Pascal Greggory, capture the effects of this illness in ways that profoundly suggest a personal experience beforehand, with the former clearly tapping into what she went through with her own father, who sadly passed shortly after Hansen-Løve finished this film’s screenplay.
The filmmaker wisely avoids sappy territory with her overall tone, but the scenes where Seydoux’s Sandra (undoubtedly Hansen-Løve’s on-screen avatar) is trying to communicate with her muddled father are still deeply heart-breaking, particularly for anyone who has seen the effects of similar neurodegenerative illnesses in parents or grandparents.
Hansen-Løve, similar to her previous film Bergman Island, lets the drama unfold naturally while keeping it relatively contained and without feeling too contrived in the storytelling. Greggory, meanwhile, is also excellent at portraying the confusion within such a person, and even with little sound mind to speak of his character still has a sense of gravitas and sweetness that the actor brings to the role, giving him the background of an educated soul without diving too deep into his actual backstory.
If emotional dramas about ailing fathers aren’t your bag, then the film also works as a sweet and endearing romantic movie, all while not feeling as though a completely different movie has crash-landed into another one. The central romance between Léa Seydoux and Melvil Poupard is wholly engaging, not just because the actors share very good chemistry with each other, but also since there is a real weight to their relationship that does genuinely make you want to know what ends up happening with them.
Beyond the fact that one of them is still married, and continues to be even when he’s popping over to her apartment for some passionate love-making, Sandra is someone with a history of emotional stuntedness, having gone through loss both with her late husband and what’s going on with her father, and is now cautiously attaching herself to someone who can’t give as much of himself as she does to him.
When together, the two of them genuinely seem to be very happy, which in and of itself makes you root for this couple, but there is seemingly a price to pay that makes you doubt their longevity as a couple, and given Hansen-Løve’s natural and unshowy storytelling style there’s nothing to suggest that they will definitely stay together by the end. It makes things more intriguing, even when it threatens to follow the traditional path of on-screen romance, but even then it’s handled well and with real strength behind it.
Whether you find yourself more won over by the romance or the family drama, One Fine Morning works on both ends, enough to create a rewarding and gentle viewing experience that, once again, feels very personal for this filmmaker. Hansen-Løve both honours and respects the circumstances with her own father by recreating them with a tender sense of love and acceptance (to where some of her father’s actual nurses appear in the film as fictional versions of themselves, and even some of her late father’s books are repurposed here as well), without mining the situation for easy tears or manipulative sentiment.
Likewise, she captures the intimacy and passion in her central romance that, from an audience’s perspective, feels earned and worth rooting for as the pieces slowly but surely fall into place, again without falling too easily into the usual genre trappings.
Filled with pleasant charm as much as it is a poignant sense of impending loss, One Fine Morning is truly the work of a filmmaker who’s lived through it all, and who’s expressed her deepest self on the screen without compromising her integral voice or vision.
SO, TO SUM UP…
One Fine Morning is a well-crafted blend of an effective family drama, featuring a heart-breaking turn by French veteran Pascal Greggory, and a charming but layered romance between Léa Seydoux and Melvil Poupard, all of which comes from the experiences of filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve who recreates them to pleasing and emotional effect.
