À ce soir (2005)
Directed by Laure Duthilleul

Film Review

Bereavement affects people in different ways, and in the case of Nelly, the heroine of Laure Duthilleul's debut feature, it involves excessive bouts of stropiness, a full-on romp with nature and a certain amount of highly suggestive corpse and coffin hugging.  With a less talented and less sympathetic actress than Sophie Marceau in Nelly's decidedly wobbly widow's shoes À ce soir would be hard to take seriously, and even Marceau looks as if she has her work cut out as she labours to crowbar a modicum of credibility into her character's shameless histrionics.  The same applies, to a lesser extent, to virtually every character in the film (even the one played by the superb Antoine Chappey) - their reaction to a shockingly suddenly demise is more theatrical than cinematic, and the deeper sense of loss is somehow overlooked, or else buried several leagues beneath the surface theatricality.  It's the kind of film that, in retrospect, would probably have worked better as a stage play.

Laure Duthilleul is a name that will already be familiar to French film enthusiasts.  Since the early eighties, she has led a busy acting career, with around eighty screen credits to her name, including René Allio's Le Matelot 512 (1984) and Claude Berri's L'Un reste, l'autre part (2004).  As a director, she shows some promise in her first feature which, whilst somewhat let down by a weak and uneven script, impresses with its visual flair and quaintly idiosyncratic poetry.  With a rare confidence for a first-time director, Duthilleul imposes her own personal stamp on the film, eschewing tidy formalism for a quirky spontaneity which lightens the mood and brings a subtle, occasionally irreverent, cheeriness to the film's bleak subject matter. 

The apparent inability of the adult characters to cope with the loss of a husband, friend or family relation is effectively contrasted by the far more natural (and believable) reactions of the children, and this is ultimately what redeems the film, along with Franck Louise's eerily incongruous score and some highly imaginative and highly effective camerawork.  À ce soir is the kind of film - an offbeat, unpretentious little drama - in which Sophie Marceau is at her best, and whilst her Adjani-style theatrics veer towards outright silliness in a few scenes, her tangible presence brings an appealing vitality and unpredictability to the film.  Bereavement doesn't just hurt like Hell, it can also send you ever so slightly mad - Marceau certainly serves up plenty of madness, but the pain within is somewhat harder to discern.

Film Synopsis

Awaking early one morning, Nelly finds her husband Manuel is still asleep.  A hardworking doctor, Manuel deserves a lie in, so Nelly leaves him in peace.  She is unconcerned when she finds him still in bed when she turns in for the night.  The next morning, Manuel still hasn't emerged from his slumbers and it is at this point that Nelly realises he is dead.  The shock is more than she can bear.  They are barely middle-aged and she had always thought that they would grow old together.  Now that Manuel has departed this world Nelly can hardly bring herself to have him buried.  It is up to the couple's friends to rally round and help Nelly overcome her insurmountable sense of loss...