Kaminski.Stiehm.Film GmbH, Bavaria Pictures, Senator Film,
Michael Caine, Clémence Poésy , Justin Kirk, Jane Alexander, Gillian Anderson, Anne Alvaro
Matthew Morgan (Michael Caine) is living alone in Paris, a retired teacher who just buried his wife who died from a long illness. He’s estranged from his son and daughter, and not doing very well. When he bumps into a young dance teacher, they form a connection. Helping each other, they are able to find meaning again in each others lives. But when the kids return to Paris they are appalled at their father’s new “girlfriend”.
This is a very bittersweet story of love and loss. Everyone jumps to conclusions about the motives of the others, and they’re completely wrong. This is a Lifetime style movie, not very fast paced, and a good character study of the four primary people in this film and what their underlying motives are. The thing that elevates this film far above that level is the skills of Michael Caine. This raises this to an absolutely special film that is very interesting to see. This reminds me a lot of On Golden Pond, but also of films like Dead Poet’s Society and Good Will Hunting. Those too were special films because of the actors in them. This is a really touching film, and one I am really glad I got to see. It may not be on the top of the list as greatest picture of the year, but it is one of those minor films that probably missed your eye. I felt like it was very worthwhile to check this one out, and I recommend it to any film lover that can handle a good character driven drama like this. One note on this. It is set in Paris, and the natives speak French. This is realistically done in the movie, so even though Michael Caine’s character is trying to learn English, and the teacher and the kids speak English, there is a lot of subtitled parts where they are speaking French. It’s not that much, and most of the film is in English. Some of the best humor comes from Matthew’s efforts to speak French (very badly), so unless you really hate subtitles, this should not reduce your enjoyment of the film a bit.
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