One Fine Morning Review | A Career Defining Work

Writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve’s latest feature, One Fine Morning, is the filmmaker’s most heartfelt and mature work to date. That’s not to say that Løve’s output to date has been somehow immature, as she’s one of the best at making films for adults working in the world today. But rather that this is the first of her works that confronts mortality and the terror of starting over again head on and in a complex way that few of her peers and contemporaries could ever hope to replicate. One Fine Morning takes an idea that would make for a fine melodrama and forms it into a work of art that’s as intelligent as it is occasionally devastating.

Léa Seydoux stars as Sandra Kienzler, a widow and mother following in her father’s footsteps by working as a translator. In addition to caring for her eight year old daughter, Linn (Camille Leban Martins), Sandra is also doing her best to look after her elderly father, Georg (Pascal Greggory), who is dealing with numerous cognitive and neurological impairments. Although Georg has a companion that’s never far from his side (Fejria Deliba), Sandra’s father is in need of round the clock care and supervision, as staying at home has become unsafe. Sandra struggles with the choice between placing her father in the cheapest care home possible or coming up with a large amount of money to put him in a private facility. Amid all her familial chaos and tragedy, Sandra has started up her first romance since the death of her husband five years prior. Sandra embarks on a deeply sexual and passionate affair with Clement (Mevil Poupaud), an old friend and married man with a child of his own.

One Fine Morning is one of the few family dramas that benefits greatly from watching it more than once; not because it’s somehow dense or inscrutable, but rather because there are so many subtle touches and grace notes that it’s impossible to take all of it in. Løve’s complex and uniquely loving portrait of people doing their best in the wake of enormous life changes feels utterly lived in and comprehensive. Every character is given a multidimensional arc and a well drawn set of needs, desires, and wishes. Although it would be easy for some to pass judgment on a couple whose relationship is built upon infidelity, it’s still very easy to wish all of these characters love and peace. One Fine Morning isn’t trying to place viewers into the shoes of its characters, but to rather display them, warts and all, and ask people to accept them for who they are.

With films like Bergman Island, Things to Come, and Goodbye First Love already under her belt, Løve is certainly no stranger to exploring themes of loss, infidelity, and messy relationship dynamics, but One Fine Morning has the power to become a potentially career defining work, a brilliantly executed look at one chapter of life closing while another takes root. Although Løve is a filmmaker whose influences are easy to spot (Rohmer, Bergman, a hint of Varda), her takes on love, sexuality, parenthood, and familial legacy are wholly her own. There are so many overlapping sensations and feelings throughout One Fine Morning that watching it is like being in the hands of a master chef who has cracked the code on making a complex, satisfying dish. Fear and ecstasy; joy and sadness; confusion and clarity; all of these contradictory feelings working overtime to invite and repel feelings to guilt and regret. The two situations – Sandra’s affair and her relationship to her father – aren’t divorced from one another. Each offers something complimentary, via small details and touches that grow in the mind the longer they sit with the viewer.

Løve’s cast has plenty of material to work with, and all of them are perfect for the task at hand. Seydoux gets her best role in ages as the stress ridden protagonist, displaying a wealth of resolve and strength amid an emotional mine field. Greggory adds an air of kindness and gentility as a flawed man who keeps losing track of his own narrative. Poupaud walks a fine line between making Clement seem like a romantic and a cad, never pushing the character too far in either direction as to become repulsive. Martins is a wonderful young performer with a bright future, and Nicole Garcia also provides memorable support as Sandra’s budding activist mother.

The interpersonal dynamics at the heart of One Fine Morning are fascinating and well reasoned. It’s a film that has the power to make viewers think about their choices and motivations long after the story has wrapped up. It’s also a work that doesn’t need to spell anything out in explicit detail for it to make sense. Løve’s work is humble and effortless, but also realistically dramatic without seeming harsh or judgmental. It’s people facing down a potentially dark and uncertain future, but meeting it head on with love, grace, and determination. If that isn’t a fitting film for life in the world today, I don’t know what else is.

One Fine Morning opens at TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto and Vancity in Vancouver on Friday, February 10, 2023. It expands to Montreal, Ottawa, and Edmonton on Friday, February 17 and to additional Canadian cities throughout the winter.