Starring: Michael Caine, Clemence Poesy, Justin Kirk, Gillian Anderson, Jane Alexander.
Distributor: Independent
Runtime: 116 mins. Reviewed in Mar 2014
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After 50 years in films, Michael Caine can still get top billing. Here he is playing Matthew Morgan, an expatriate philosophy professor, who has lived in Paris in retirement with his wife but who is still grieving three years after the death of his wife from cancer. Interestingly, Michael Caine is playing a character who his is his exact age, 78 at the time of filming.
The film opens with his wife’s death and his stubbornness concerning the removal of her body. But, he has survived, going through various routines, somewhat alienated from his son and daughter who live in the United States. Perhaps not a great premise for an almost two hour film. In fact, it is, with the first hour gaining a light and happy touch, the second hour becoming more serious.
When Mr Morgan stumbles in a local bus, a young woman, Pauline, assists him, accompanying him home. She has a lively and attractive personality and when Mr Morgan sees her in a bus again, he gets out at her stop – and thus begins a most genial acquaintance and friendship. Mr Morgan starts going out more frequently, discovering that Pauline is a dance teacher, cha-cha and other lively dances. Slowly he becomes a participant. But, he has always had thoughts of suicide after his wife’s death and he makes an attempt with pills, fails, and finds himself in hospital.
His son, Miles, arrives from America, finds his father embracing the young woman and thinks the worst, that she is a gold-digger after his father. He is an angry man, his wife leaving him, with his resentment towards his father and his poor parenting as well as seemingly preventing himself and his sister from saying farewell to their mother at her dying.
The sister also arrives, a much tougher character than her brother. This leads to many discussion sequences, the sister returning to America, the brother staying, antagonistic towards Pauline, not happy with her intervening to make peace. In the second half, after a sympathetic attitude towards Mr Morgan, we begin to see the other side of his life and behaviour, his inability to affirm his son, his keeping his distance, and the perceived selfishness in keeping their mother’s death from her children.
Clemence Poesy is charming as Pauline. Justin Kirk is Miles and Gillian Anderson is the sister. [But, Michael Caine’s American accent sounds forced and reminiscent of his terrible accent, despite his winning the Oscar) in The Cider House Rules.]
Towards the end there is rather or too-sudden dramatic development, which the audience is not quite prepared for, but it paves the way for a resolution, for Miles, Pauline and for Mr Morgan himself.
This is a film for older audiences who will identify with Mr Morgan and his situation, with his wife and her terminal illness. It is a film for middle-aged audiences who have to think about their relationship with their parents and imminent old age and death.
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