Film Review – One Fine Morning (2022)

Mia Hansen-Love’s Paris in One Fine Morning is smothered with apartment blocks, anonymous, faceless edifices but each with its own story going on behind those windows and doors. We’re taken behind one of them, for what could so easily slip into soap opera but, in the hands of such a compassionate director, is a bittersweet tale of different types of love and holding onto happiness wherever you find it, however fleeting it might be.

Single mum Sandra (a luminous Lea Seydoux) balances her professional life as a translator with caring for her ailing father and the general emptiness of her emotional life since the death of her partner. A former philosophy professor, her father Georg (Pascal Greggory) has Benson’s syndrome, which affects his sight and thought processes in ways similar to dementia, and is increasingly unable to look after himself. By chance, she runs into old friend Christian (Melvil Poupaud), who has always drifted in and out of her life, and they begin a passionate affair. It’s a spark of sunshine in Sandra’s otherwise stress-filled world, but knowing he is married hangs over both of them like a cloud, as does the knowledge that their relationship can’t last.

She’s torn between two men, neither of whom can give her the level of support and affection that she genuinely needs. Her father’s decline means he hurts her by frequently forgetting who she is and watching the brilliant academic disappear before her very eyes is heartbreaking, even though he’s blissfully unaware of it. The apparent glamour of Christian’s work – he’s frequently away on business – his charm and obvious good looks are all part of his appeal, as is his passion for her, but Sandra is always in second place behind his wife and little boy and, despite his all his promises, she fears things will never change. Yet Hansen-Love draws us into her dilemma to such an extent that we want her to find the happiness she so desperately seeks, even if our more rational heads tell us it’s unlikely to be with Christian.

While essentially a romance, the film takes us deeper into the painful decisions that go with her father’s cruel condition. Wall-to-wall bookcases dominate his apartment but he’s lost the ability to read or understand any of them. Instead his future lies in institutional care, something that has to be chosen by Sandra and her mother, despite her parents having divorced some time ago. It’s an agonising process – some places are better than others and he’s moved from one to another like an Amazon parcel, despite the staff doing their best to care for him. There are no winners here and somehow Sandra manages to preserve an outward composure but the quality of Seydoux’s performance allows us more insights into what’s really going on behind that façade. Character actor Greggory is superb as her father, occasionally giving a glimpse of the man he once was. He and Seydoux share some beautifully tender moments and her scenes with Poupaud have real romantic intensity.

It isn’t always an easy watch, yet the film still has glimmers of hope just big enough for both us and Sandra to cling to. And Hansen-Love leads us through an emotional minefield with a  combination of agility and tenderness that can’t fail to capture our hearts.

★★★★

Drama, Romance | Cinemas, 14 April 2023. MUBI, 16 June 2023. | MUBI | Cert: 15 | French | Dir: Mia Hansen-Love | Lea Seydoux, Melvil Poupaud, Pascal Greggory, Nicole Garcia, Camille Leban Martins

About the Author

Freda Cooper

Editor

A lifelong movie fan and a film critic for over ten years, Freda’s natural habitat is the darkened rooms frequented by fellow cineastes. She can also be found asking questions of some of the biggest names in the business – from Cate Blanchett to Daniel Craig or Mike Leigh to Pete Docter – or crafting reviews for a number of sites and publications, including The People’s Movies. And listeners to BBC Local Radio can catch her views on the latest releases. She always – and probably always will – cite The Third Man as her favourite film of all time. Her top ten? That’s a moveable feast …..

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