Léa Seydoux, Pascal Greggory, Melvil Poupaud, Nicole Garcia
Léa Seydoux shines in the new film by Mia Hansen-Løve (Father of My Children, Eden, Things to Come, Bergman Island) – a sweet, thoughtful and understated drama about a young Parisian navigating her father’s illness, single parenthood and a potential new love.
A bright, coolly independent young woman, Sandra is a freelance translator and single mother whose busy life is thrown into disarray when her father’s degenerative illness worsens. No longer able to live independently, former academic Georg (Pascal Greggory) must go into care, plunging Sandra and her family into the administrative nightmare of securing a suitable home for him. It’s not an ideal time for a complicated new relationship to present itself, but – in the form of her old, married friend, an urbane cosmochemist (played by Melvil Poupaud) – it does.
What One Fine Morning explores more than anything is life’s unpredictability and emotional incongruity, the way in which the most sorrowful moments of your existence might also coincide with its most exhilarating joys. It’s a film that will resonate with anyone who has had to take on caring responsibilities while living another life elsewhere, depicted in Hansen-Løve’s signature style – deceptively simple and straightforward, semi-autobiographical, packing a punch specifically because of its lightness, ease and convincing naturalism. It’s lovely to see Seydoux in a role that really showcases her superb acting ability, and she’s fantastic here as a woman forging doggedly ahead amid multiple uncertainties, oscillating between joy and grief.
