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Wall Street Journal
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘When Fall Is Coming' Review: Autumnal Ambiguities
This year, spring has sprung at American indie cinemas with a pair of French films that are distinctly out of season, colored by the yellow leaves of autumn: Two weeks ago was Alain Guiraudie's 'Misericordia,' and this weekend brings 'When Fall Is Coming,' directed by the prolific François Ozon. Both involve murder, mushrooms, and a young man who just might be taking advantage of an older woman. But where Mr. Guiraudie is an impish auteur, using mystery and melodrama for his own playfully perverse ends, Mr. Ozon takes a slightly more straightforward approach, and his movie is the less persuasive and compelling of the two. That it is still worthwhile owes largely to the sympathetic, sinuous performance of Hélène Vincent, in the lead role of a grand-mère who may not be as simply sweet as she first appears. Ms. Vincent's Michelle lives alone in a lovely old house in Burgundy, where she leads a quiet life of gardening, going for walks and reading by the fire, her typical solitude broken only by meetings with her best friend, Marie-Claude (Josiane Balasko). But as the film begins, Michelle is expecting visitors, soon to arrive from Paris: her daughter, Valérie (Ludivine Sagnier), and grandson, Lucas (Garlan Erlos). In eager anticipation, Michelle prepares a splendid-looking lunch—mushrooms, freshly foraged and sautéed, and a quiche of epic diameter—and then sits to await the sound of their car pulling up outside. As written by Mr. Ozon and Philippe Piazzo, Valérie turns out to be a bit of a caricature, the harried adult child who radiates stress and urban frenzy even in the tranquil countryside. She enters the movie complaining about traffic and shortly thereafter lands on the sofa to stare squarely at her phone, scarcely interested in her mother and rudely rebuffing attempts at conversation. When she ends up in the hospital due to the mushrooms served at lunch, it almost seems like a bit of karmic justice. But could it have been justice of a more deliberate kind? Devised by, say, her own mother? At lunch, Michelle claimed that she wasn't hungry, and she knew that Lucas didn't like mushrooms, which left only Valérie to eat them. The doctors and the police whom Michelle talks to see the incident as an honest mistake, familiar to anyone who has taken a chance on wild fungi. (Which is, it seems, most French people.) But Mr. Ozon delights in tweaking the drama with tacit uncertainties. Didn't we see Michelle consulting a mushroom identification chart as she prepared lunch? Could she have made such a dangerous error? Valérie neither knows nor cares—all she wants is to return to Paris, which she does as soon as she's out of the hospital, taking Lucas along with her, to the devastation of his grandmother. The film allows a moment of bare emotion for mother and daughter alike following her departure, as we see Michelle in her loneliness at home and Valérie crying as she drives away. There is, we sense, a past of great pain between these two. When the film eventually reveals more about that past, the answers are surprising. But they don't carry much depth, instead tending toward a silly, scandalizing sensibility that Mr. Ozon's generally realist approach can't convey with much credibility. Still, the film has its strengths: Ms. Vincent and Ms. Balasko make a great, world-weary team as rueful mothers, with Marie-Claude's son, Vincent (Pierre Lottin), having just been released from prison. 'I hate to say it,' Marie-Claude says, 'but with our kids, we failed miserably.' Yet Vincent, at least outwardly swearing off the troublemaking of his youth, is friendly to Michelle, who hires him to do odd jobs around her property. Mr. Lottin leverages the hint of menace beneath his slick handsomeness to create a figure whose seductive ambiguity tilts toward the sinister, which the film puts to engaging use in its continuing twists. And although some work better than others, Ms. Vincent is steadfast in her commitment to a character whose morality and true affections are themselves the stuff of mystery.
New York Times
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘When Fall is Coming' Review: Cooking Up a Mystery
For 'When Fall Is Coming,' the French filmmaker François Ozon has cooked up a little mystery and an enigmatic heroine. A sleek, modestly scaled entertainment about families, secrets and obligations, it features fine performances and some picture-postcard Burgundian locations. It's there in the heart of France, in a picturesque village in a large, pretty house, that Michelle (Hélène Vincent) makes her home. With her kind eyes, guileless smile and upswept hair, she looks the very picture of a sweet old lady. Looks can be deceiving, though, as we're reminded, and as Ozon's movie goes along, that picture grows amusingly slyer. Ozon's efficiency and polished style are among his appeals — his films include 'Under the Sand' and 'Swimming Pool' — and he lays out this movie with silky ease. In precise, illustrative scenes he takes you on the rounds with Michelle, mapping her pleasant environs, charting her routines and introducing her small circle of intimates, including another local, Marie-Claude (Josiane Balasko), a longtime, charmingly earthy friend. For the most part, the pieces fit together, though a few things seem off. For one, Marie-Claude's son, Vincent (Pierre Lottin), is in jail when the movie opens (though soon out); for another, Michelle's daughter, Valérie (Ludivine Sagnier), is viscerally, inexplicably, hostile to her mother. Michelle's life and the setup seem so pacific that the movie initially teeters on the soporific; which works as a sneaky bit of misdirection. Because just when everything seems a little too frictionless, someone prepares poisonous mushrooms for lunch, and someone else eats them, a turn that puts you on alert (where you stay). Ozon, who also wrote the script, continues to lightly thicken the plot but also withholds information, and before you know it, this obvious story has become an intrigue. One bad thing leads to another (and another), and the air crackles with menace. Michelle and Valérie argue, Marie-Claude falls seriously ill, Vincent takes a suspicious trip. Yet the more that things happen, the less you know. Ozon sprinkles the story with hints, summons up the ghost of Claude Chabrol (bonjour!) and, during one vividly hued autumn walk, evokes Grimm's fairy-tale 'Snow-White and Rose-Red,' about two sisters. He also foregrounds doubles: The sisterly Michelle and Marie-Claude don't have partners, and each has a difficult adult kid. Despite their nominal similarities, Valérie and Vincent are notably different; he and his mom are openly loving, for one. By contrast, the minute that Valérie and her son, Lucas (Garlan Erlos), drive in from Paris to visit Michelle, the mood turns ugly. Valérie is petulant and nakedly greedy, and she soon asks for Michelle's house. 'I'll owe less in taxes when you die,' she says before taking a swig of wine. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
