It was the greatest love story never told. For decades, Nina (Barbara Sukowa) and Mado (Martine Chevallier) have lived a romance in the shadows, on the same floor, in opposite apartments. Nobody knew. Not the neighbors, not Mado’s grown children. But sudden illness has a way of shattering many pensioners’ plans for the future. The plan was for the two to sell their units and escape to Rome, where their remaining years together in the sun would fade into romantic bliss. But when Nina runs into the realtor, he lets slip Mado’s reluctance to make the sale final. The big hurt comes when Mado tells Nina that she finally summoned the courage required to come out to her children, even though she hadn’t. The intensity of Nina’s anger upon learning the news is great enough to force viewers back in their seats. But that’s nothing compared to the horror that awaits Nina when she awakens to find her mate in a vegetative state. In no time, daughter Anne (Léa Drucker) hires a live-in caretaker. To Anne and her brother Frédéric (Jérôme Varanfrain), Nina is nothing more than the nice lady who shares a floor with their mother. She’s locked out of the flat they shared for the first time in their relationship, because in the eyes of the world, the love of Nina’s life is just her neighbor across the hall. But even though the film appears to eschew melodrama as if out of spite, Filippo Meneghetti and co-writers Malysone Bovorasmy and Florence Vignon can’t resist a subplot involving the caretaker and her son, out to bilk money from Nina, who in turn exposes a side of her personality that, for a moment, borders on stalker. At this stage in her life, Nina, the more relaxed of the two, is of a mind that nobody cares about the goings on of a couple of old dykes. Hopefully, audiences won’t feel the same way. It’s a difficult subject to sell, but given the performances and the director’s penchant for visual detail, anything, even the most depressing subject matter, can find joy in its completion. (2019) — Scott Marks
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