‘When Fall Is Coming’: San Sebastián Review

Dir. François Ozon. France 2024. 102 mins. 

The tirelessly-inventive François Ozon can pull some unlikely rabbits out of his hat when the fancy takes him: as witness his last film, flamboyant period pastiche The Crime Is Mine. But Ozon is also a specialist in the minor key – and it’s often when he seems to play it muted and sensible that the surprises emerge in the strangest ways. As lyrically autumnal as its title suggests, When Fall Is Coming ostensibly seems a sweetly melancholic meditation on age, guilt and reconciliation. And on one level it is that – but shot through with finely modulated irony, plus subtle hints of thriller as domestic melodrama crosses almost imperceptibly into Claude Chabrol territory.

With a terrific lead from screen and stage veteran Hélène Vincent, this is Ozon in his fine-wine register, but with acerbic notes; following the film’s San Sebastian competition slot, expect it to tickle a mature international audience.

The film is a meticulously-crafted vehicle for Hélène Vincent, a hugely respected stage actor and director of several decades’ standing, whose film career notably includes a César-winning role in Life Is A Long Quiet River; she also appeared in Ozon’s 2019 drama By The Grace Of God. Here she plays Michelle, an elderly woman first seen in church listening to a parable whose content slyly hints at the themes to come. Originally from Paris, she now lives alone in a comfortable house in the Burgundy countryside, in a village close to her old friend Marie-Claude (much-loved character player and French box-office titan Josiane Balasko, also in By The Grace…).

Both women have family issues: Marie-Claude’s son Vincent (Pierre Lottin) is soon to be released from prison, while Michelle’s daughter Valérie (Ludivine Sagnier) is stressed, self-absorbed and crackling with resentment towards her mother. Michelle’s beloved young grandson Lucas (newcomer Garlan Erlos) is due to spend an autumn holiday with her, but an unfortunate incident scuppers that, leaving Valérie angrier than ever and Michelle anxious about her own mental state.

When Vincent returns to the village, with vague dreams of opening a bar, Michelle decides to set him on his feet by employing him as her gardener. Then a truly dramatic event occurs out of the blue – which Ozon declines to show us, leaving a quivering zone of uncertainty at the heart of the drama. He further ups the ante by introducing a stylistic and narrative discrepancy that seems totally out of keeping with what has gone before, but adds an eloquent new layer both to the family storyline and to the outlining of Michelle’s mental state. Without revealing too much, it’s a trick that Ozon played to poignant effect in one of his early films – and fans will appreciate the callback.

Spirit of place and season is key, with Jérôme Alméras’s lyrical but unshowy camerawork maximising the palette and textures of rural autumn. The film is impeccably cast: Sagnier is strikingly rebarbative, and the film plays astutely on the fact that Valérie is just not that easy to sympathise with. Vincent, tantalisingly elusive under the guarded exterior of a taciturn working-class male, should represent a wider breakout role for Lottin, already popular in comedy series Les Tuche and also seen this year in The Marching Band.  His restrained, fine-tuned performance keeps us guessing about Vincent’s motives and inner nature.

Above all, though, this film is a gift of a showcase for Hélène Vincent. She provides a magnetic centre to the drama, as Michelle’s feelings, doubts and unresolved thoughts about her own past – the truth eventually emerging in the quietest, most thoughtful reveal – play out play in a complex, subtle web of themes concerning redemption, parental responsibility and self-acceptance. Given the soft-focus cosiness with which cinema so often depicts older characters, especially women, this film’s dramatising of late-life content, sorrow and solitude is as subversive in its way as anything Ozon has done, and a tartly intelligent rejoinder to the clichés of screen ageism.