O Último Amor de Mr. Morgan

"Sometimes you meet someone that requires all the love you have to give." Matthew Morgan (Caine) has just lost his wife and his world no longer makes sense. Living in Paris and unable to speak the language he only has one friend left. On a train one day he meets Pauline (Poésy) and strikes up an instant friendship. After Matthew tries something drastic his two estranged children show up and old tensions come back. This is a hard movie to describe. It's not boring but not much happens. It's slow moving but keeps you interested. Michael Caine is great in this and this is not so much a love story but more of a redemption story. I am finding it hard to come up with something to say about this not because I didn't like it but because of the subject. This is really just another widow father and estranged children movie but this feels like so much more. This is a movie where you just have to see it to see what I mean. I recommend this. Overall, a cookie cutter plot but anything but a cookie cutter movie. I give it a B+.

Last Love (2013)

This is such a poignant and well meant movie it's hard to not like it and its intentions. What it fails to do is "rise above." It is a heartfelt look at finding meaning at the end—and the beginning—of life in Paris, and yet it remains somewhat prosaic, missing a beat now and then. I loved it at times, but only very much liked it by the end.

I love without reservation "Mostly Martha," the most successful movie by the director, Sandra Nettlebeck. In that one, she makes her understanding of being German, and its limitations, an important part of the movie. Here we are in France, in a plot based on a French novel, with a British actor playing an American and a young French woman. Michael Caine is nor ordinary actor and he's actually wonderful here. And indeed the young woman who plays his muse, in a way (the woman who creates the "crack" in his world that is the key to the movie), is also very good, if common (played by Clemence Poesy—she appears in a couple Harry Potter movies).

What succeeds beyond these very good performances is the idea of a man near his last days in Paris, after the death of his wife, and a young woman who befriends him out of some unexplained loneliness. What they form is an odd but believable friendship. Their family and other friends do not understand or approve, but it makes sense to them, even when it's awkward. It's a kind of brave and interesting subject.

What it lacks is exactly the right feel and touch, the sense of trueness to spirit and character that people might actually have. There are moments that are just great, a rebellion or a quiet look, and then there are moments where the characters act, well, out of character. A hair.

If this seems like picking on nuances you have to understand that the movie is about such emotional and psychological nuances. It sets its own bar high, and so suffers from that. Sometimes.

See it? Yes. I liked it wholly. But see also "Mostly Martha" for a similar sense of finding what matters, of pan-European feelings, of crossing normal boundaries with romantic flair.

it's an unpretentious fine film, which can be seen with pleasure.

Interpreters are beautiful and the dialogues are very pleasant.

As it is usual, authors have some difficult in finding an end for the movie, being possible a few of them. Probably due to this, the last half hour is a bit inconsistent: Pauline redirects her love from father to son a bit too quickly.

Also illogical is that people go from Paris to St. Malo and vice versa as if it was the next town in the map, or as if they had taken helicopters instead of driving or taking a taxi.

Michael Caine exhibits his 80 years splendidly. I am astonished seeing that he will act at least in three films this year.

After Sandra Nettelbecks movie Mostly Martha I had high hopes for this one and was not disappointed. In contrast to Mostly Martha, the film is more Drama than Comedy. This movie is about a dysfunctional family with a father/grandfather being estranged from his children. This is something almost every family can relate to. The movie develops slowly, revealing the family secrets one by one. At the end we will feel sympathy with every member of the family because we understand their positions but we are far from knowing how to solve their problems. The solution or kind of a solution that will leave most of us happy is also revealed slowly. This is a slow movie with very good acting. Michael Caine is excellent. The only thing that bothered me a little was the music.

Michael Caine is getting old. Playing an old man, acting or real? He is at his best. Gone is his dry humor and whit, gone is also his regular British accent (apart from a few strongly emotional scenes when he suddenly looses the American accent he is supposed to have).

This is a very odd movie, difficult to put into any frame. The acting is nothing else but superb, not a single moment without complete realism.

Watch this move alone or with your significant other, do not forget the paper napkins, because this is very emotional. My eyes are still wet, this is a movie that will remain in my mind for a long time.