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I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was directed by François Ozon, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, after ‘Été 85’ which I already enjoyed a lot, it was another really solid directorial effort from Ozon (surprisingly, I have watched 20 of his movies so far while he was never really a favorite of mine). In this case, it turned out to be a plea for the right to use euthanasia but the way he handled this material was really intriguing. Indeed, it was not as straightforward as for example ‘Mar adentro’ and, to be honest, up until the very last scene, I thought it was actually about a massive narcissist who was trying to manipulate one last time his 2 daughters. It did remind me of my mother who gave a similar speech at the diner table about getting euthanasia when I was about the same age as the main character was. Eventually, instead of focusing on the merits and flaws of euthanasia, Ozon focused on the characters themselves which was an interesting choice. The fact that they were played by a top cast probably helped as well (Sophie Marceau, André Dussollier, Géraldine Pailhas, Charlotte Rampling, Éric Caravaca, Hanna Schygulla). Especially Sophie Marceau, not only she still looked gorgeous at 55 years old but, above all, it was probably her best performance I have seen so far (on the other hand, I have to admit that I never really cared for her work so I haven’t seen so many of her movies). Eventually, even though Ozon focused on the characters and what they were going through, at the end, you didn’t learn that much about them after all which was equally satisfying and frustrating. For example, they gave a few flashback scenes which provided a glimpse of what their lives might have been all these years ago but it was so little that, at the end, you had basically no clue whatsoever about who they actually were. Anyway, to conclude, it turned out to be pretty good and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in François Ozon’s work.
7/10
