Early in Mia Hansen-Love’s One Fine Morning, Sandra (Léa Seydoux) visits her ailing father, Georg (Pascal Greggory), a philosophy professor who’s been forced to retire because of his declining health. In addition to memory loss, the man has lost some motor control and most of his eyesight, and in this first scene Sandra is in the agonizing position of coaching him through opening the door to his apartment. We wait this out, looking on from behind as Sandra deals with this scenario with all the learned patience and suppressed agony of someone who’s long since grown used to such painful customs.
Sandra and her sister, Elodie (Sarah Le Picard), and their mother, Francoise (Nicole Garcia), who’s long since divorced from Georg, are shown to be dealing with this prolonged crisis in ways typical of families beset by inescapable tragic circumstances: with resigned laughter and feigned casualness, punctuated by quiet moments of sadness. And with her customary incisiveness, at once gentle and piercing, Hansen-Løve tracks Sandra’s day-to-day life as she and her family cope with a pivotal turn in Georg’s neurodegenerative disease that will require them to remove him from his long-time home and find him a suitable nursing home.
On the same morning that she has to aid her father to open the door to his apartment, Sandra runs into Clément (Melvil Poupaud), an old friend of her deceased husband, and sparks immediately fly. Soon Sandra is splitting time between her father, her job as a French-English interpreter, the budding romance with the married Clément, and looking after her precocious daughter, Linn (Camille Leban Martins). It’s not that she’s not up to the task, but that’s a lot for a person, even one as resilient as Seydoux’s thirtysomething character, to juggle.
One of the most resonant aspects of One Fine Morning’s contemplation of the role played by the men in Sandra’s life is the treatment of Georg’s home library. Hansen-Løve gradually reveals the extent of Sandra’s adoration of her father by making the reams of 20th-century world literature that line his bookshelves into a symbol of the knowledge that’s being lost along with his mind. Figuring out what to do with the books as Georg moves out of his home turns out to be a fraught issue for Sandra, because, as she explains to Linn, they basically are her father, but also because they’re clearly a part of her. The objects Georg is leaving behind are mere traces, a diverse collection that can now only evoke the absence of the mind that synthesized them.
Forming a relationship with Clément while coping with the impending, torturously extenuated loss of Georg is plainly a risky move from an emotional standpoint, particularly as Clément threatens to be another absent male presence in her life. He’s unable to decide once and for all to leave his loveless marriage, despite his evident passion for Sandra and love Linn. One of the times the two have to pause their romance due to his indecision, he reminds her, “You knew my situation.” Growing teary-eyed, Sandra replies, “And you knew mine.”
In articulating Sandra’s bemusement or boredom with Linn, her infatuation or heartbreak with Clément, and her pain and curiosity in the interactions with Georg, Seydoux gives a lived-in performance that’s in many ways a departure for the actress. Seydoux’s omnipresence has come largely through roles that emphasize her characters’ enigmatic, often alluring aloofness; her Madeleine Swann in the Bond films, for one, is the poster child for an era that can’t decide whether or not it’s still allowed to write femmes fatales but still very much wants to.
In casting her as a single mother at a common crossroads in life, Hansen-Løve exploits Seydoux’s ability to realize, with incredible nuance and clarity, a character who lacks the impenetrable façade that male directors like Wes Anderson have often seen in Seydoux’s face. In her pained smiles and somewhat sheepish demeanor, Sandra is easy to read as someone who has been through the wringer and may be a bit more delicate for it.
And yet, there’s still a guarded quality to the character, thanks at least in part to Seydoux’s resting neutral face. This makes sense for someone who’s experienced and is undergoing trauma. As Sandra confides in Clément after their first hesitant date, she hasn’t been with anyone in the five years since her husband died. “I just feel my love life is behind me” is the tenuous excuse that she offers him. The impression of emotional distance that Seydoux conveys is shot through with hints of both vulnerability and strength.
One Fine Morning’s storytelling is deceptively straightforward, rooted in realistic dialogue and Hansen-Løve’s light touch as a visual stylist, but in both the construction of the narrative and in the performances, there’s much going on beyond the explicitly worded script. The film’s generally short, precisely punctuated scenes, often set to or bridged by snippets from a piano sonata by Franz Schubert, whom we eventually learn was Georg’s favorite composer, slide into each other with an ease that run in counterpoint to Sandra’s difficulties.
There’s a sense of inevitability to the way time seems to simply pass as the film moves between scenes, irrespective of Sandra’s actions. As it softly transitions from a painful visit with Georg in his nursing home, to a break-up with Clement, to Sandra’s bored face as she attends a movie at a multiplex with Linn, One Fine Morning reminds us that life moves forward, that people and relationships change, even when we might like to be able to hit pause on the finest moments.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
