Uma Bela Manhã

I want to describe this film as getting a big hug from the most important person in your life, the one you haven't seen in a long time. There's such warmth mixed with longing. This film is a series of ebbs and flows. Happy and sad - all wrapped up in a beautiful package. You peek into Sandra's life, go on walks around Paris with her, watch her worry about the state of her dad, and let her find solace in the arms of a married man. Emotions live in every frame of this film. Every moment plays with no judgment. Sandra is you or me or anyone, and she's living her life in the best way that she can.

While this may not appeal to many people's tastes, I believe it's a film that can bring out a familiar memory out of everyone: the double-edged sword of caring for the people we love.

Mia Hansen-Love's new film "Un beau matin" tells the story of a single mother, played by the fantastic Léa Seydoux, who has to take care of her sick father after he has been diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease. At the same time, she falls in love for the first time after the death of her daughter's father a few years back. "Un Beau Matin" is a very conventional Parisian drama, which nonetheless unfolds quickly with a strong energy which makes it stand out from similar films.

Hansen-Love explores love in different variations by switching almost episodically between the protagonist's three relationships: the alienated father who's not able to recognise her after a while, the lover who is cheating on his wife and her daughter whom she has to raise alone. In all these relationships, the film searches for moments of truth, and it finds them, for example in a beautiful scene in which the protagonist explains to her daughter how and why she recognises her father rather in his books than when she actually spends time with him.

It's a film full of honesty and comprehension, and Léa Seydoux is as usual fantastic at embodying the young woman who is torn between the three relationships, trying to fulfil their expectations while suffering themselves from the difficulties. In quiet but meaningful scenes, Mia Hansen-Love deals with the sickness of her own father by humanising the decision of letting go for the sake of others, and ultimately yourself.

Beautifully written and directed french drama about the possibility or impossibility of love in different relations, for a lover, a child, a father.

I loved the bitter sweet story, explored here with tenderness, lightness, humour and melancholy, reminding me of the best achievements of french cinema by Sautet or Lelouch in the 60s and 70s. Chemistry between Seydoux, who I never found acting more subtle and intense, and Poupaud with great sensitivity, works ideally. Pascal Greggory, one of the greatest french actors of his generation, gives a very touching performance as a father desperately fighting for his dignity against a mind threatening lethal disease, I also loved the natural performance of the little girl playing Seydoux' daughter.

There's hope in the end and we all know again what it's worth living for! Strongly recommended.

"Sandra" (Léa Seydoux) is at a crossroads in her life. Her ageing, academic, father (the scene-dominating Pascal Greggory) has been diagnosed with a neuro-degenerative disease that is pretty much robbing him of his quality of life. He is an acclaimed philosopher who finds his increasing lack of ability to think and to remember exasperating. Meantime, she also reconnects with her old friend "Clément" (Melvil Poupaud). He delights in being called a cosmo-chemist (he studies meteoric dust using a rather impressive mass spectrometer). It's clear from the outset that these two have the hots for each other and, despite the fact that he is married with a young son, they embark of quite a lively affair. She is juggling her affection for him while struggling to find an adequate facility for her father; he is having a crisis of conscience as he falls more deeply in love but has his own family to consider. That's about the height of it. Even with the underlying - and rather depressing - analysis of the care provision for her elderly and increasingly failing father adding some gravitas to the film, the story itself is all a rather lacklustre drama centred around two people who are actually quite selfish. They both have responsibilities and as you'd expect, as their relationship develops, these become predictable millstones that we can anticipate all too readily. It has aspects of a soap to it, and though both leads are easy on the eye, I don't think either really have enough here to allow their characters to develop nor to really engage with an audience that has seen this sort of narrative unfold many, many, times before. It looks good - the filming and performances from the younger children are very natural, but at the end I was wondering what was different here. It will work fine on the television, but I doubt I will remember much about it in a fortnight.

There are challenges that your life has had presented, large hurdles that have left you less contented, after becoming a young widow, there's just you and a young kiddo, and now your fathers progressively, getting more demented. But those close all lend a hand and give support, as your father's moved around from port to port, an old friend becomes much more, becoming someone you adore, though he's married, and you're not sure if he'll abort.

The perpetually magnifique Léa Seydoux plays Sandra, as she juggles a child, an aging father and a new lover, in a tale that might hit home if you have connections in part or in whole with her plight, but ultimately is a pretty ordinary affair or variation on often encountered themes.