She picks up her child and holds him to her heart. As she observed with the young mother and her newborn. Only Crystal Boltanski, embodied by Catherine Deneuve, has long been a mature woman. Just as her son Benjamin is an adult – an emaciated man in a hospital bed.
At the age of 39, the drama teacher Benoit Magimel (“The Pianist”) gave was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The 78-year-old Deneuve, grande dame of French cinema, and Magimel (47), who won the Cesar and Cannes awards, face one of its greatest injustices in this directorial work by Parisian Emmanuelle Bercot (54): life comes much too soon be terminated. A mother will have to bury her child against the natural course of time. “Let In Love” is, of course, a feature film. However, one that is based on a situation that people often experience in reality.
One expects a film that will overwhelm the audience with a wave of pain. But the work proves once again how much instinct French cinema has for the melody of life, i.e. also for its bright echoes. Crystal, Benjamin, his estranged son Leandre (Oscar Morgan) and Lola (Lou Lampros), one of his students, are portrayed by Bercot as three generations in which imminent death prompts intimate issues, questions, feelings and conflicts in all their human diversity : Uncertainty, repression, fear, sadness, anger, powerlessness, old mistakes. In the same way, the ensemble, supported by Deneuve, delivers tender, loving, kind and redeeming moments that introduce the inevitable, prepare for the farewell and the time afterwards. Bercot grants a special place in this film to the hospital staff, who also act palliatively, to whom the experienced Dr. Eddé (Gabriel Sara) presides. A medic so flawless, empathetic, wise, and with a work environment and emotional resources that could be considered kitsch.
But films like this melancholically beautiful, bittersweet one are also there for that. Not to raise expectations that are unlikely to be met in reality. But to create utopias that show what could be successful. Even an approach that was tried on all sides when death tears a turning point in the biographies of those left behind.
“leave in love”: F / B 2021, 122 Min., Director: E. Bercot
OÖN Rating:
The trailer for the film:
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Source: Nachrichten
