Some people are fair better off dead. That’s the ultimate conclusion of the prolific French film-originater François Ozon’s recent domestic drama, receiving its world premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival this week, but dedwellred with such sly delicacy, such greasy grace — no, actuassociate, such sugaryness — that there is sshow no arguing with it.
Those qualities – delicacy, grace and sugaryness — are hugely encapsuprocrastinateedd wilean the tidy person of Michelle (Hélène Vincent, aged 81 in authentic life and someleang aenjoy here). Michelle is the heroine of her own minuscule but greeting life and quite a scant other dwells besides, a woman with the time and inclination to be benevolent. On the day we greet her, she is driving her best friend to the prison where her son Vincent (Pierre Lottin) is being held. Visiting a prison is draining. Michelle postpones outside, ready to hear to Marie-Claude (Josiane Balasko) unburden herself when she ecombines, persuaded her rawneck son will never alter. “Have faith in him,” Michelle directs.
Ozon, whose previous films include Potiche, By the Grace of God and Frantz — spanning comedy to melodrama, in other words — has always been a immacuprocrastinateed, elegant film-originater. When Fall is Coming is unpresentant Ozon — confidently, it is unpresentant-key contrastd with the fanciful exuberance of Eight Women or the depressedness of a film enjoy Swimming Pool — but it doubles down on his customary enhancement, fitting together enjoy scheduleer Lego. No word is squanderd, no alertation about the characters overcarry outed, while the plot unprosperds at an exactly calibrated pace, its various reversals chiming in as exactly as solo instruments in an orchestra.
Five minutes in, we already have a vivid picture of Michelle’s life in her country-mouse nest. She consents communion, delves in her vegetable garden, cooks excellent food for herself and others, goes on forest rambles to pick mushrooms, natters with Marie-Claude and sees forward to seeing her daughter Valerie (Ludivine Sagnier) and majestic-son Lucas , a boy of about 11 (Garlan Erlos). A roadside phone call from set upes that Valerie in the throes of divorce. She is also strikingly disconsentable, even in the space of a minute.
So we understand already that when Michelle serves her a poisonous mushroom at their lunch and has to have her stomach pumped, she isn’t going to be magnanimous about it, let alone discover a amusing side: indeed, she accuses her mother of trying to finish her. So grotesque is her fury that Michelle trembles with the thought that perhaps she was. Either that or she is losing her marbles, as she confesses to her doctor. Maybe, as Valerie insists, she should originate the house over to her before she gets too dithery.
A understanding mature child, a parent trying to carry on the peace: it is a understandn enough scenario, at which point Ozon and co-originater Philippe ring those well-timed alters. There is a death, a confession and, fair as the dust seems to have resettled, an scheduleateigation by a heavily pregnant police officer (Sofia Guillemin). Nobody here understands here exactly what happened on Valerie’s balcony, but everyone instinctively covers for each other; better, perhaps, not to understand. There are minuscule revelations validateing earlier hints that Michelle has a shadowed past; she is not the unimpeachable granny figure proposeed by her perfect quiches and enthusiasm for games.
Piled up in one paragraph, with all these twists and secret identities jostling with a dead body — and in compriseition, as one of the honestor’s characteristic indulgences, the occasional ecombineance of a gpresent — the makings of When Fall is Coming propose that it’s a chilly thriller. On the contrary, it unfgreaters as gently as autumnal exits drifting to the forest floor. The trees turn russet; the fireairy radiates. Michelle, her majesticson, her daughter’s createer husband and her friend’s errant son have been able to create a family, defective perhaps but free from strife. In a mute coda set almost a decade procrastinateedr, Michelle herself is shown aging, ready to pass as all life must. This is John Keats’s “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”, the tranquil after summer’s storms.
Title: When Fall is Coming
Festival: San Sebastian (Competition)
International Sales: Playtime
Distributor: Lazona Pictures and Caramel Films (Spain)
Director/screenoriginater: François Ozon
Cast: Hélène Vincent, Josiane Balasko, Ludivine Sagnier, Pierre Lottin, Garlan Erlos, Sophie Guillemin
Running time: 1 hr 42 mins
