Mr. Morgan's Last Love

What starts as a very intelligent, well-acted movie about the nature of relationships and the need for connection, turns dramatically and disappointingly into a sentimental mushpile of a soap opera, and then gets worse. Extremely well-acted up to a point, the characters are fleshed out as real people and you can for the most part understand and empathize with them. Michael Caine's weird attempt at an American accent doesn't quite undermine his characterization of the professor, but it is distracting and sounds too false. He did a pretty OK American accent in Cider House Rules, but nowhere else.

I was very impressed by most of this movie, including the pretty scenery, and the nicely conceived and rounded characters. About 2/3 of the way through however, it goes off the rails. Another reviewer described this movie as having sincerity, and I would agree with that up to a point. There are few false notes in the script, but when they happen they are real clunkers that drag the movie down like an anchor. This may be because the rest of the movie is so sincere and real that the false notes feel just that more false, but I don't think that's quite it.

There is a very soap opera moment at around the 3/4 point which not only feels contrived, but which pulls the story in a really unsatisfying direction. While it's headed in this disastrous direction it's actually succeeding in giving the characters life in a meaningful and sincere way, but then another ridiculous plot device drives it further into the ground. And then another. And another.

And the ending is just stupid. Unwatchably preposterously stupid. Given what we know these characters have gone through, and how much they've grown as human beings, it's outside the realm of believability and is antithetical to the story, erasing the purpose of the movie and voiding its intelligence with a single swipe. Worse, the movie wants you to view the ending as having the sort of lofty nobility that would cause you to leap out of your seat and applaud, which I find personally disgusting. Would that I had leaped out of my seat earlier and left. If that particular ending was in the original source material, then so much the worse for the source material because as portrayed it didn't do the movie any favors.

While this is a bit lighter in tone than the Oscar winner Amour, it seems to try to go for some of the same feelings and touches. Michael Caine is impeccable in his role, so is Michelle Godet, who has a weird role to play. It is walking a fine line, not really declaring what the relationship is between those two characters and this might be one of the best things that happen.

Through a bit of lost in Translation in and you have a very fine movie. It's weirdness might either attract you more to it or appall you a bit. Whatever the case you can't fault it's story, about lost love and maybe even lost hope. Family is a big part of life and it is here too. A bit of Song of Marion is in here too. So good ingredients, not perfect but very good movie still

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.

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.

Matthew (Michael Caine) is a widower in Paris... has lived there for years, but has never learned the language. Disgraceful. Now he must start to get out and about and meet the people. He keeps bumping into dance instructor Pauline (Clémence Poésy). They seem to hit it off on some level, and they spend time together, at least for the time being. Matthew keeps trying to knock himself off, but we're not sure why. His son Miles ( Justin Kirk) and daughter (Gillian Anderson !!) show up, and they aren't sure what to make of Dad's friendship with Pauline. Family dynamics. Miles thinks he knows what's best for Dad and butts heads with both Matthew and Pauline. Lots of family conflict. Good stuff. Directed by Sandra Nettelbeck, who has written and directed several projects. Story by Françoise Dorner, une actress/directeur françoise. Moves kind of slow and bleak, for the last part of the story, but it is what it is. Interesting study of family relationships. Showing on netflix. No car chases, no gunfights. Michael Caine is good stuff.