Olivier Assayas's tale of three siblings who have to deal with the aftermath of their mother's death.
A good film but hardly the knock out that many of the local New York papers made it out to be. The film works in small moments, moments or odd passages. The opening of the film as we watch the family buzzing around the familial home for the matriarch's 75th birthday is very real and you have the feeling that perhaps we are intruding on a real family.A later scene where the mother corners her son and explains what she wants after she goes will echo with anyone who has had that sort of conversation with a parent. A later scene where the members of the family visit a museum and see their mother's things there is funny because of how they react to the art and telling in that it kind of puts the detritus of our lives in perspective. The rest is good but it didn't completely hang with me.
For me the film is possibly the best film that I've seen by Olivier Assayas. I've seen Clean, Boarding Gate and a couple of others and this seems to be the first time where he didn't loose the plot or seem to take left turns suddenly to keep things going. I will say that the film suffers a slight case of feeling constructed instead of natural (this is the films major flaw). Once we get the mother and son going over her wishes (which works as a scene unto itself) the film seems destined in some way to follow a certain course and hit certain moments in a preordained way. The naturalness of the first fifteen or twenty minutes where everything flowed nicely is replaced by good solid scenes that were placed in their spot with care that isn't as life like. I'm annoyed because I was so certain that I was going to love this film from the opening moments, only I found that I ended up linking it instead.
Still its a good film and worth a look, though I think you may be wise to do what I did and see it on cable.(This was one of the choices of the IFC in Theaters on demand service) since I can't in all honesty recommend this for 11 bucks a head in a theater.
A good film but hardly the knock out that many of the local New York papers made it out to be. The film works in small moments, moments or odd passages. The opening of the film as we watch the family buzzing around the familial home for the matriarch's 75th birthday is very real and you have the feeling that perhaps we are intruding on a real family.A later scene where the mother corners her son and explains what she wants after she goes will echo with anyone who has had that sort of conversation with a parent. A later scene where the members of the family visit a museum and see their mother's things there is funny because of how they react to the art and telling in that it kind of puts the detritus of our lives in perspective. The rest is good but it didn't completely hang with me.
For me the film is possibly the best film that I've seen by Olivier Assayas. I've seen Clean, Boarding Gate and a couple of others and this seems to be the first time where he didn't loose the plot or seem to take left turns suddenly to keep things going. I will say that the film suffers a slight case of feeling constructed instead of natural (this is the films major flaw). Once we get the mother and son going over her wishes (which works as a scene unto itself) the film seems destined in some way to follow a certain course and hit certain moments in a preordained way. The naturalness of the first fifteen or twenty minutes where everything flowed nicely is replaced by good solid scenes that were placed in their spot with care that isn't as life like. I'm annoyed because I was so certain that I was going to love this film from the opening moments, only I found that I ended up linking it instead.
Still its a good film and worth a look, though I think you may be wise to do what I did and see it on cable.(This was one of the choices of the IFC in Theaters on demand service) since I can't in all honesty recommend this for 11 bucks a head in a theater.