Cinema release/“When autumn comes”. Hélène Vincent is a sweet granny who adores her grandson but has not revealed all her secrets in François Ozon’s new film. “WHEN AUTUMN COMES” (this Wednesday October 2 on the screens) is a country family chronicle in the tone of a dramatic comedy, which mixes sequences of emotion and moments of suspense.
« WHEN AUTUMN COMES » : and caring film which does not lack emotion, which paints the portrait of a grandmother with simple appearances but who has her gray areas
She performs Michellea good grandmother in all respects, formerly Parisian but who lives a peaceful retirement in a small village in Burgundy. She lives in a large house, cultivates her vegetable garden, goes to mass, accompanies her friend Marie-Claude by car (Josiane Balasko), dines alone and does not seem to suffer too much from loneliness.
On All Saints’ Day, his daughter Valérie (Ludivine Sagnier), who is going through a divorce, comes to visit him and drop off his 10-year-old son Lucas for the week of vacation. But the first evening, at dinner, Michelle cooks mushrooms that only Valérie eats, and she is poisoned.
Unforeseen event
Nothing serious, but it’s the break between the mother and the daughter, with very tense relations – we will understand later why. Valérie returns to Paris with Lucas and no longer wants him to see his grandmother.
Life goes on for Michelle, who is languishing over this separation. An unforeseen event will change his life, which has become sad, through Vincent (Pierre Lottinseen recently in EVERYONE CALLS ME MIKE et LIVINGand who we will soon see in EN FANFARE), the son of Marie-Claude who has just been released from prison…
Suspense in the last quarter of an hour
Aside from the initial episode of the poisonous mushroom dinner, the first part of the film has the calm of this small Burgundian village, the atmosphere is innocuous and the pace slow. It is only halfway through the film that things will happen, and that we will learn others – and in particular about this lonely grandmother –, with moments of suspense in the last quarter of ‘hour.
This construction of the story was desired by François Ozon, who wrote the screenplay for the film. “There is a desire for simplicity and gentleness in the staging, crossed with tension and suspense on the real issues of the characters, who are confronted with complex cases of conscience, beyond good and evil”, he explains.
Very different films
He has made films that are very different from each other, like a jack of all trades who is interested in various subjects and likes to vary the way he approaches them and tells stories, from EIGHT WOMEN (2001) et SWIMMING POOL (2002) to “THANKS TO GOD” (2019) or SUMMER 85 (2020). His previous film, MY CRIME, was a costume detective comedy based on a 1934 play.
In « WHEN AUTUMN COMES »a caring film which does not lack emotion, with a lovely bittersweet ending, it paints the portrait of a grandmother with simple appearances but who has her gray areas. Between the unsaid family and the love of a sympathetic grandmother for her ungrateful daughter and her caring grandson, he slips in the idea – through two characters in the film – that everyone has the right to a second chance in life .
Two lovely roles
Above all, he wanted to imagine two lovely roles for Hélène Vincent, 81, and Josiane Balasko, 74, who give the film all its depth: “the first desire was above all to film actresses of a certain age. To show the beauty of the wrinkles on their face, make of the passing of time and their experience of life.”
As for the initial idea of mushroom poisoning, it comes, he recounts with humor, “from my personal history. As a child, one of my aunts organized a family meal where she cooked mushrooms, which she had collected herself. During the night, everyone had been very ill, except her, who had not eaten any. This story fascinated me and I suspected my aunt, so kind and caring, of having wanted to poison the whole family (which was somewhat my deep desire)! »
Jean-Michel Comte
THE SENTENCE: “Normally we do not have the right to prevent a grandmother from seeing her grandchildren” (Josiane Balasko).
- To have :“WHEN AUTUMN COMES” (France, 1h42). Director: François Ozon. With Hélène Vincent, Josiane Balasko, Ludivine Sagnier (Release October 2, 2024)
Find this column as well as all of Jean-Michel Comte’s cinema releases on the site Cinégong
