QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM MALTA

Mathieu (Guillaume Canet) is living the dream. He’s a dead handsome and successful film actor, with hordes with loving fans in every corner of France. He’s happily married, and money is never an issue. The big decision he has to make is whether he’s going to kick off a career in theatre. His intention has been announced all over the news, however he remains hesitant about the direction of his new step. So he takes a break in a luxury spa in a sleepy coastal town, in the hope that the thalassotherapy (seawater treatment) will soothe his bourgeois doubts and anxieties.

There is something oppressive in the tranquility of the environment. A fan insists that they should take a selfie, when Mathieu is immobilised on a therapeutic stretcher. He disagrees, but she proceeds anyway. His phone rings while his legs are stuck inside a cast-like machine, leaving our poor rich man to crawl on his arms. He is unable to operate the contactless coffee machine, instead inundating the table with liquid. It doesn’t feel like a distinctly liberating experience, but instead an awkward and quietly overwhelming one. Film star issues foreign to most of us plebs. Yet his discomfort is palpable, as Canet delivers a convincingly humanistic performance.

The news of his arrival spread like wildfire and soon reach Alice (Alba Rohrwacher), a lover whom Mathieu rejected nearly two decades earlier and hasn’t seen since. She feels doubly rejected because not only did he dump her, but he failed to encouraged her artistic career. She ended up marrying a far less good-looking man, which whom she has a teenage daughter. We barely her family, the focus of the film remaining entirely on Mathieu’s and Alice’s emotions. She makes living by giving piano lessons, and finds affection by volunteering in an old people’s home. She befriends an octogenarian lady, and asks intimate questions about her youth on camera. The interaction is honest and beautiful. The two women have a genuine bond. So much that Alice attends social events at the old people’s institution.

Mathieu and Alice inevitably meet, and there’s little doubt that they will resist the temptation of a brief revival. The prospect of a more permanent settlement is remote. The 57-year-old French director is more preoccupied with the intensity of small moments. The fleeting breeze of yesterday’s love. It feels good, it reaches deep inside if you. But it will probably pass and never return. This is a gentle and subtle romance, not one with sudden and shocking twists. Rohrwacher is the real scene-stealer, with a devastatingly heartfelt performance. It is impossible not to be moved by her sorrowful grimace slowly morphing into a beautiful smile of acceptance and contentedness. As with 2018’s A Woman Life, Stéphane Brizé’s Out of Season is a seasonably breezy drama, with rainy weather and water playing a pivotal role. The liquid offers physical and emotional healing.

The chemistry between the two leads is notable. The silent, non-intrusive eye-to-eye interactions and the occasional tear demonstrate that their sentiments are intense. The only thumbs-down goes to the sex scene. I shudder with embarrassment every time I see two lovers having penetrative sex under a duvet. Does anyone do that in real life?

This a movie dotted with little moments of tender humour, and a little dash of cringe. A waiter explains how the fish is humanely killed by inserting a needle into his brain, prompting a disgusted Alice to order the vegetarian couscous. A perplexed Mathieu observes young entertainers clucking and cackling inside the old people’s home, and they too look quite surprised to his his immediately recognisable face in such an ordinary environment. It is easy to laugh along as our protagonists find tiny possibilities of joy in this short and likely ill-fated romance. Stéphane Brizé’s latest creation is a paean to fortuitous serendipities, and a reminder that abrupt departures are an integral part of life. It’s scarcely original and innovative, yet it remains urgent in its simplicity.

Out of Season is in Competition at the 2nd edition of the Mediterrane Film Festival, in Malta.