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Now Streaming: WHEN FALL IS COMING (2024)
Granny was a sex-worker!
A tisket, a tasket, poison mushrooms in the basket!
WHEN FALL IS COMING (2024) François Ozon / Writers: François Ozon & Philippe Piazzo / Cinematographer: Jérôme Alméras (1.85:1) / Design: Christelle Maisonneuve / Editor: Anita Roth / Composers: Evgueni Galperine & Sacha Galperine / Acted by: Hélène Vincent, Josiane Balasko, Ludivine Sagnier, Pierre Lottin, Garlan Erlos, & Sophie Guillemin / France / Distributor: Music Box Films / Not Rated / Length: 104 mins.
The title of this engaging, leisurely-paced puzzler is open to three interpretations: one’s twilight years, a change of season, and a physical spill. Or, in the case of François Ozon’s latest, all three. The impetus for writing the film was drawn from the pages of personal backstory, an incident jogged from the director’s memory. An aunt invited the family to a dinner that featured, as a side dish, wild mushrooms she’d picked herself. That same evening, everyone at the table fell ill except for Auntie, who had conspicuously passed on the side dish when it made the rounds. Ozon says that he suspected his aunt, "so kind and caring, of having wanted to poison the entire family!”
The director’s life-threatening relation served as the model for Michelle Giraud (Hélène Vincent), a senior enjoying a peaceful retirement by tending her garden in a small, scenic Burgundy village. It's the sort of place in which there is no such thing as a bad view. We don’t know it at the time, but the church sermon about Mary Magdalene that brings up the curtain will prove to be of great significance at around the halfway point. Until then, let us harken back to a time when cigarette smoking was a socially acceptable occurrence, the way Marie-Claude (Josiane Balasko) does. She's Michelle’s neighbor and longtime confidante, and her son Vincent (Pierre Lottin) is set to be sprung from a stretch in the clink. For the last time, Michelle will, as she has for lo these many years, provide round-trip service to Marie-Claude.
A mental slip while setting the table provides the first sign of Michelle’s cognitive decline. While transferring dinner glasses from cupboard to table, Michelle zones out, as if forgetting what task she is in the middle of performing. In less than 30 seconds, and using just her face, Vincent takes us on a tour of Michelle’s three states of being, somewhere between alertness and clarity, as a brain fog rolls in. For those intimately acquainted with Alzheimer’s, the certainty of Vincent’s performance makes it a difficult moment to watch.
Michelle is expecting visitors: her estranged daughter Valérie (Ludivine Sagnier) has, after a period of adjustment, granted her young son Lucas (Garlan Erlos) a week together with his grandmother. (The Parisian flat Valérie and Lucas call home was once Michelle's home and office. More on that later.)
Michelle comes across as a loving provider, and the wild mushrooms she picked with Marie-Claude while celebrating Vincent’s release are on the menu that night. Like Ozon’s aunt, Michelle declines, while Lucas shrugs off his helping with, “I don’t eat mushrooms.” When it comes time for the paramedics to pump Valérie’s stomach, it's found that her sudden illness was brought on by bum toadstools. Naturally, Valérie points a finger at her mother and suggests premeditated picking. Deliberate or not, she deems Michelle's act a threat to their existence. Rather than press charges, she immediately packs their bags and takes Lucas home.
Video:
Trailer: WHEN FALL IS COMING
If the mushrooms don’t kill her, the nicotine will. While on the balcony back home, Valerie reaches for a hidden pack of emergency butts and falls to her death. Suicide, or was there a helping hand?
Everyone, including Lucas, is hip to Michelle's dirty secret: before making Burgundy her home, Granny was a Parisian sex worker, strictly upper-crust. (After several run-ins with pimps, she quit the business — not long before Lucas was born.) Summoning up the nerve, Lucas tells Granny that the bigger kids at school say she's a whore. Michelle honestly and unashamedly replies, “I was. In Paris, for many years.” For those wondering whether Marie-Claude was a business associate as well as a friend, wait until you see what shows up for her funeral. (I struggled with dropping a spoiler alert, but in this day and age, what chance is there that an overweight, up-in-years chain-smoker is going to live to see a sequel?)
But it's not just schoolyard bullies who are flinging mud. Ex-con Vincent helps out around the house, and in return, Michelle gives him money to start a bar. At the opening festivities, a few rowdy patrons call her out on her past proclivities, and Vincent flips. Perhaps it's because she was his mother’s friend and visiting-day chauffeur that he’s become so protective. Or maybe he's just cozying up to the simpering old dame in order to siphon her retirement funds — it's clear that without her help, Vincent’s dream would have been just that.
Ozon has a well-earned reputation for being a woman’s director. (Vincent, Balasko, and Sagnier all make return appearances and Ozon welcomes Sophie Guillemin to the troupe as the pregnant police captain who cracks the case.) Here, Valérie’s preternatural return gives the reclusive and deluded Michelle someone to bounce off — and audiences an excuse to check their watches. It’s the only false-note moment of gimmickry in an otherwise wholly original approach to dramatizing dementia. ****
Arrives on digital June 10.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Now Streaming: WHEN FALL IS COMING (2024)
Granny was a sex-worker!
Now Streaming: WHEN FALL IS COMING (2024)
Granny was a sex-worker!
A tisket, a tasket, poison mushrooms in the basket!
WHEN FALL IS COMING (2024) François Ozon / Writers: François Ozon & Philippe Piazzo / Cinematographer: Jérôme Alméras (1.85:1) / Design: Christelle Maisonneuve / Editor: Anita Roth / Composers: Evgueni Galperine & Sacha Galperine / Acted by: Hélène Vincent, Josiane Balasko, Ludivine Sagnier, Pierre Lottin, Garlan Erlos, & Sophie Guillemin / France / Distributor: Music Box Films / Not Rated / Length: 104 mins.
The title of this engaging, leisurely-paced puzzler is open to three interpretations: one’s twilight years, a change of season, and a physical spill. Or, in the case of François Ozon’s latest, all three. The impetus for writing the film was drawn from the pages of personal backstory, an incident jogged from the director’s memory. An aunt invited the family to a dinner that featured, as a side dish, wild mushrooms she’d picked herself. That same evening, everyone at the table fell ill except for Auntie, who had conspicuously passed on the side dish when it made the rounds. Ozon says that he suspected his aunt, "so kind and caring, of having wanted to poison the entire family!”
The director’s life-threatening relation served as the model for Michelle Giraud (Hélène Vincent), a senior enjoying a peaceful retirement by tending her garden in a small, scenic Burgundy village. It's the sort of place in which there is no such thing as a bad view. We don’t know it at the time, but the church sermon about Mary Magdalene that brings up the curtain will prove to be of great significance at around the halfway point. Until then, let us harken back to a time when cigarette smoking was a socially acceptable occurrence, the way Marie-Claude (Josiane Balasko) does. She's Michelle’s neighbor and longtime confidante, and her son Vincent (Pierre Lottin) is set to be sprung from a stretch in the clink. For the last time, Michelle will, as she has for lo these many years, provide round-trip service to Marie-Claude.
A mental slip while setting the table provides the first sign of Michelle’s cognitive decline. While transferring dinner glasses from cupboard to table, Michelle zones out, as if forgetting what task she is in the middle of performing. In less than 30 seconds, and using just her face, Vincent takes us on a tour of Michelle’s three states of being, somewhere between alertness and clarity, as a brain fog rolls in. For those intimately acquainted with Alzheimer’s, the certainty of Vincent’s performance makes it a difficult moment to watch.
Michelle is expecting visitors: her estranged daughter Valérie (Ludivine Sagnier) has, after a period of adjustment, granted her young son Lucas (Garlan Erlos) a week together with his grandmother. (The Parisian flat Valérie and Lucas call home was once Michelle's home and office. More on that later.)
Michelle comes across as a loving provider, and the wild mushrooms she picked with Marie-Claude while celebrating Vincent’s release are on the menu that night. Like Ozon’s aunt, Michelle declines, while Lucas shrugs off his helping with, “I don’t eat mushrooms.” When it comes time for the paramedics to pump Valérie’s stomach, it's found that her sudden illness was brought on by bum toadstools. Naturally, Valérie points a finger at her mother and suggests premeditated picking. Deliberate or not, she deems Michelle's act a threat to their existence. Rather than press charges, she immediately packs their bags and takes Lucas home.
Video:
Trailer: WHEN FALL IS COMING
If the mushrooms don’t kill her, the nicotine will. While on the balcony back home, Valerie reaches for a hidden pack of emergency butts and falls to her death. Suicide, or was there a helping hand?
Everyone, including Lucas, is hip to Michelle's dirty secret: before making Burgundy her home, Granny was a Parisian sex worker, strictly upper-crust. (After several run-ins with pimps, she quit the business — not long before Lucas was born.) Summoning up the nerve, Lucas tells Granny that the bigger kids at school say she's a whore. Michelle honestly and unashamedly replies, “I was. In Paris, for many years.” For those wondering whether Marie-Claude was a business associate as well as a friend, wait until you see what shows up for her funeral. (I struggled with dropping a spoiler alert, but in this day and age, what chance is there that an overweight, up-in-years chain-smoker is going to live to see a sequel?)
But it's not just schoolyard bullies who are flinging mud. Ex-con Vincent helps out around the house, and in return, Michelle gives him money to start a bar. At the opening festivities, a few rowdy patrons call her out on her past proclivities, and Vincent flips. Perhaps it's because she was his mother’s friend and visiting-day chauffeur that he’s become so protective. Or maybe he's just cozying up to the simpering old dame in order to siphon her retirement funds — it's clear that without her help, Vincent’s dream would have been just that.
Ozon has a well-earned reputation for being a woman’s director. (Vincent, Balasko, and Sagnier all make return appearances and Ozon welcomes Sophie Guillemin to the troupe as the pregnant police captain who cracks the case.) Here, Valérie’s preternatural return gives the reclusive and deluded Michelle someone to bounce off — and audiences an excuse to check their watches. It’s the only false-note moment of gimmickry in an otherwise wholly original approach to dramatizing dementia. ****
Arrives on digital June 10.
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