Directed and written by: Mia Hansen-Løve
Starring: Léa Seydoux, Pascal Greggory, Melvil Poupaud, Camille Leban Martins and Nicole Garcia
Runtime: 112 minutes
Léa Seydoux’s heartfelt performance felt overshadowed by the all-too-familiar concepts of family strain and conflicted romance.
Sandra Kienzler (Léa Seydoux) is splitting up her life caring for her young daughter Linn (Camille Leban Martins) and mentally deteriorating father (Pascal Greggory), while rediscovering her sexual passion with lover Clément, (Melvil Poupaud) -who is splitting his attention with Sandra for his wife and son.
On top of this, Sandra works as a translator for various linguistic projects and helps her family shift her father from one care facility to the next.
Sound like someone we know?
Seydoux portrays the mothers, daughters and romantic partners of the world. More importantly, Seydoux shows the intricacies of juggling the messy everyday world through this combined character lens.
The role expectations of Sandra, to be both a mother and adult daughter, create a commentary about familial structures for women. Seydoux’s character must simultaneously care for Linn and her ailing father, placing pressure on herself, which builds tension for viewers throughout the film.
Director Mia Hansen-Løve artfully connects viewers to Sandra’s life through the short, but key, dialogue exchanges throughout the movie. A day at Linn’s school wouldn’t be complete without school-shooter precaution training (every parent’s fear). Meanwhile, Sandra helps her visually impaired father to the restroom (the unexpected responsibility of adult children acting as caretakers). In the midst of the heartbreak, is Nicole Garcia’s laugh-out-loud role as Sandra’s hair-brained mother, Françoise.
Sprinkled throughout the film, are Sandra’s interactions with her lover, Clément. Leaving viewers smiling, frowning and squinting at the screen.
Seydoux handles these scenes with poised emotional responses, much like the women in our real lives, but this nearly two-hour film lacked a character arc. Sandra Kienzler faces familial and romantic challenges, but emotionally suppresses herself, which lands her in nearly the same place as the start of the film.
The slow-paced movie allows viewers to experience the imbalance in Sandra’s life, but for the female audience, these are all-too-familiar concepts.
Let’s dive into the nitty gritty of cinematography.
Often, it takes me multiple encounters with a movie to realize a mistake within a scene. But since each scene in the film highlights the various relationships in Sandra’s life, one silly ice cream scoop distracted my viewing experience. Sandra and Linn are an example of a goofy and loveable mother-daughter duo. There are only a few scenes utilized to highlight that relationship though. In one case, Linn is holding an ice cream cone, and in between the transitions when Sandra playfully asks Linn for a bite, another scoop of ice cream is added to the cone. If there wasn’t such a focus on the ice cream, I wouldn’t have noticed the change, but this distraction lessened the emphasis on their relationship.
Other transitions made throughout the film shifted the viewer’s attention from one scene to the next quickly, and at times, scenes were accompanied by music. While shifting throughout the scenes, viewers were introduced to the whirling storm of Sandra’s life within the first thirty minutes. The rest of the film further delves into those aspects, sharing the life of a lead female character.
In “One Fine Morning,” Mia shows us the intricacy of a person whom most people wouldn’t look twice at.
Plot: ★★☆☆☆ 2/5
Cinematography: ★★★☆☆ 3/5
Character Arc: ★☆☆☆☆ 1/5
