We were able to view this movie on Netflix streaming.
Set and filmed in Paris and surrounding areas, Michael Caine is 80- ish Matthew Morgan, retired Princeton professor living in Paris with his wife. As the movie begins we see that she is dying, we find out later she had cancer.
His wife had been the love of his life and now, just over three years later we see him going through the paces of everyday life but not really excited about anything. His Paris home and his country home, his wife's favorite, are indications that he is financially very well off.
Matthew's life gets a spark, or as they say in the movie "a crack in his world", to let some light in, in the person of 30-ish Clémence Poésy as Pauline. They have a strictly chance encounter on a city bus and something makes them attracted to each other. For Pauline it may be because he reminds her of her deceased father.
Nonetheless they become friends, they have lunch, he goes to the dance studio where she teaches. Then when something happens that draws Matthew's two adult children to Paris, they immediately suspect that Pauline is trying to get to Matthew's money.
The adult children are Gillian Anderson (of X Files) as Karen Morgan and Justin Kirk as bitter, angry Miles Morgan. There are some old issues never resolved and it takes up a good portion of the last half of the movie.
It moves a bit slowly most of the time and at almost two hours requires some patience, but overall I like the movie a lot. The resolution of everything is not what I would have expected but fits in a certain mystical way.
SPOILERS: Matthew tries, unsuccessfully, to die by sleeping pill overdose. Pauline is upset with him, the two adult children travel from the USA to be with him, and Miles especially is contentious towards Pauline. A number of things happen, various things are said, Matthew knew he was not a good father, he never wanted children but had them because his wife wanted them. In the end Pauline realizes that Miles was just a younger version of Matthew and the two of them kiss, passionately, Matthew sees this, he tells Miles, if you hurt her I will kill you, even though you are my son. In the end Matthew tells Miles to take care of her, Matthew ends his own life, when Miles is leaving he tells Pauline he will be back for her.
Set and filmed in Paris and surrounding areas, Michael Caine is 80- ish Matthew Morgan, retired Princeton professor living in Paris with his wife. As the movie begins we see that she is dying, we find out later she had cancer.
His wife had been the love of his life and now, just over three years later we see him going through the paces of everyday life but not really excited about anything. His Paris home and his country home, his wife's favorite, are indications that he is financially very well off.
Matthew's life gets a spark, or as they say in the movie "a crack in his world", to let some light in, in the person of 30-ish Clémence Poésy as Pauline. They have a strictly chance encounter on a city bus and something makes them attracted to each other. For Pauline it may be because he reminds her of her deceased father.
Nonetheless they become friends, they have lunch, he goes to the dance studio where she teaches. Then when something happens that draws Matthew's two adult children to Paris, they immediately suspect that Pauline is trying to get to Matthew's money.
The adult children are Gillian Anderson (of X Files) as Karen Morgan and Justin Kirk as bitter, angry Miles Morgan. There are some old issues never resolved and it takes up a good portion of the last half of the movie.
It moves a bit slowly most of the time and at almost two hours requires some patience, but overall I like the movie a lot. The resolution of everything is not what I would have expected but fits in a certain mystical way.
SPOILERS: Matthew tries, unsuccessfully, to die by sleeping pill overdose. Pauline is upset with him, the two adult children travel from the USA to be with him, and Miles especially is contentious towards Pauline. A number of things happen, various things are said, Matthew knew he was not a good father, he never wanted children but had them because his wife wanted them. In the end Pauline realizes that Miles was just a younger version of Matthew and the two of them kiss, passionately, Matthew sees this, he tells Miles, if you hurt her I will kill you, even though you are my son. In the end Matthew tells Miles to take care of her, Matthew ends his own life, when Miles is leaving he tells Pauline he will be back for her.