Grand départ

The subject could have given an absorbing work which concerns everybody :children confronted to one of their parents 'Alzheimer or other neuro degenerative desease.

Romain is an executive whose only concern is his career : his father who suffers from this desease is slowly dying and his brother is gay ; of course,it has become a cliché , the parents divorced a long time ago;Romain thinks he's the only one who can manage the family's predicament although he is the youngest son , " always my big brother's toy".

Pio Marmai gives a johnny-one-note performance; one never feels his pain ;on the other hand, we're told a lot about his brilliant career (the boss mistaking the fake banknotes for a bribe ,it's hard to swallow !);his "departure",his great "discovery" ,when the movie ends, is so trite,so simplistic ,and so bourgeois ,the average viewer won't bother.

Jeremie Elkaim is somewhat better as the gay brother but his role is downright underwritten :although we are told he is a screenwriter ,we never see him work (Serena hints at an "important screening for him" and that's it) ,as though he were denied a social background .

Eddy Mitchell is not bad ,but we never forget the pop singer he is .He has not much to do anyway ; Charlotte de Turckheim ,who runs the luxury nursing home ,is certainly the most convincing thespian of the lot.

The childhood flashbacks are the new craze of the French cinema ; one more time, this distressing situation deserved a better treatment and a better principal (see what Jérémie Rénier achieves in a similar tragedy in "l'ordre des médecins").