This little French comedy "Bright Days Ahead" stars Fanny Ardant as a recently retired dentist, who, still under the shock of her best friends's death, discovers new life paths when her daughters send her to "Les beaux jours", an institution where a great number of retirees spends their hours sewing, playing table tennis or taking computer lessons. At these lessons, she meets Julien, a teacher and more than 20 years her junior, with whom she soon enters a passionate relationship that turns her dull retirement life upside down. Complications arise as she's been married for decades and Julien isn't a man for one woman either.
It's a very French film, with lots of situation comedy from start to finish and if I'll watch it again at some point, I'll probably discover a lot more subtle nuances I oversaw the first time. Quite a hoot actually. It's very well written and never really drags. Real drama moments are rather rare, but executed properly as well, so taking everything into consideration this is definitely more of a feel-good comedy elevated by the script, Ardant's acting and a sweet ending where we see her taken and led by her husband's hand as opposed to several scenes earlier where her lover takes her by the hand to go places. It also has a couple memorable shots that show Marie Vernoux's talent, such as their first encounter in the car with the windshield separating us and everybody else in the world from their intimacy or the scene where Ardant's characters sits on a bench and we see Lafitte's leave on the right and, at the same time, one of her daughters entering the picture on the left.
In contrast to her character, Fanny Ardant, well into her 60s by now, proves in this film why she is hopefully still far away from retirement. She delivers a quietly convincing performance of a character who simply isn't over the top and wouldn't have justified such an approach. There's nothing absolutely outstanding about this film, the script maybe coming the closest to such a description, but it's an entertaining 100 minutes with some decent French music that will probably go a lot more under the radar than they should.
It's a very French film, with lots of situation comedy from start to finish and if I'll watch it again at some point, I'll probably discover a lot more subtle nuances I oversaw the first time. Quite a hoot actually. It's very well written and never really drags. Real drama moments are rather rare, but executed properly as well, so taking everything into consideration this is definitely more of a feel-good comedy elevated by the script, Ardant's acting and a sweet ending where we see her taken and led by her husband's hand as opposed to several scenes earlier where her lover takes her by the hand to go places. It also has a couple memorable shots that show Marie Vernoux's talent, such as their first encounter in the car with the windshield separating us and everybody else in the world from their intimacy or the scene where Ardant's characters sits on a bench and we see Lafitte's leave on the right and, at the same time, one of her daughters entering the picture on the left.
In contrast to her character, Fanny Ardant, well into her 60s by now, proves in this film why she is hopefully still far away from retirement. She delivers a quietly convincing performance of a character who simply isn't over the top and wouldn't have justified such an approach. There's nothing absolutely outstanding about this film, the script maybe coming the closest to such a description, but it's an entertaining 100 minutes with some decent French music that will probably go a lot more under the radar than they should.