One Fine Morning Review - A Stimulating Drama
In many ways, Sandra (Léa Seydoux) is: Linn (Camille Leban Martins), a single mother of an eight-year-old daughter, is the child of Georg (Pascal Greggory), a retired professor whose neurodegenerative disease is on the verge of necessitating round-the-clock care. Linn is a professional interpreter who is fluent in English, German, and her native French. She devotes herself to these roles, perhaps to the point of overdoing it, until she runs across Clément (Melvil Poupaud), an old friend with whom she clicks right away. Clément, who is dissatisfied in his marriage due to their shared feelings, has an affair with Sandra. This is Sandra's first relationship since her spouse passed away five years earlier. The emotional turmoil of this affair—passionate but infrequent and laced with guilt—pushes her own feelings to the surdata-face, forcing her to data-face them. This is compounded by the slow anguish of her father's decline and the strains of arranging his care.
The way Hansen-Lve organises the narrative also makes it a powerful approach to reflect on the experience of losing a parent to a degenerative disease and all of its complex data-facets. Sandra's interactions with Georg are eerily similar to those she has with Linn in that she must practically parent her father while serving as his carer. The plot only permits itself the amount of backstory necessary to support the current discussion, and when more information about Georg's life before his sickness becomes available, it gradually deepens Sandra's sense of loss. Her father's continued existence is questioned, and the movie even provides him with a potent, deceptive metaphor for his own journey.
The film's minute scope makes it about two hours long, almost too long to be enjoyable, but its outstanding visual composition prevents any possible antsiness. One wants to stay in One Fine Morning's warm embrace because of its cinematography. At the very least, Sandra wears reds when Clément has rekindled her latent desire, therefore the production design and costume are based on bright, primary colours that seem to mirror Sandra's emotional state. Even if the movie makes an effort to be grounded, the world still seems to be seen through the lens of an artist, which is a good thing.