François Ozon’s “When Fall is Coming” starts simply enough. Crunchy leaves and pumpkin soup characterize daily rituals as the air turns crisp in the quaint Burgundy valley where Michelle (Hélène Vincent) lives. One rainy afternoon, the kindly octogenarian — wrapped in a warm leopard print jumper — stops pottering around and sinks into her favorite chair to call her daughter. But after fall comes winter, and already a frosty undercurrent between mother and daughter suggests that there’s more to this perpetual autumn than meets the eye.
Ozon is a filmmaker as regular and reliable as the seasons themselves, yet France’s most prolific auteur is far from predictable, and the same is true of his latest annual release. Following the campery of last year’s “The Crime is Mine” and his tragicomic reworking of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s “Peter von Kant,” Ozon is in a more pensive mood with this mellow autumn-core affair. But in the absence of his signature melodrama and playful eroticism, there’s still much to unearth.
Like the pumpkins and mushrooms that Michelle roots out of her garden, Ozon’s script (co-written with Philippe Piazzo) gently forages for something more delicate than fans might not be used to seeing from the queer provocateur. Twists play with expectation, challenging initial preconceptions, but there’s no grandstanding. In fact, these so-called twists barely register as such because of how gently they’re introduced, casually interwoven with precision and care like the knots of chunky knitwear that guard us against a cold snap in fall. Knotty too are the relationships that unspool as Ozon steadily brushes the top layer of this village aside to dig for real dirt underneath.
Michelle’s daughter Valérie (Ludivine Sagnier) visits from Paris with her young son Lucas (Garlan Erlos) and years of built-up resentment, the kind that goes unnamed but can be felt in the weight of every clipped word and jaded glance. Demands to inherit her mother’s countryside home make us resent her early on, however, as Michelle seems determined to just make the best of things and be there for her daughter and grandson any way she can.
So when a dinner of foraged wild mushrooms sends Valérie — and only Valérie — to the hospital with a dangerous case of food poisoning, we naturally side with Michelle who seems horrified at her mistake and what it almost cost her. Valérie survives, and goes on to berate her mother rather cruelly, to the point where she even cuts Vincent off from her grandson (despite knowing this “would tear [her] apart”). It all seems so unfair, yet Michelle can’t help but wonder if her slip-up stemmed from something deeper, despite reassurances to the contrary from doctors, police and her best friend, Marie-Claude (Josiane Balasko).
Did Michelle actually wish her daughter harm? The pair’s relationship was toxic even before the poisonous mushrooms came into play, and Marie-Claude has issues with her own adult child as well. “We took it up the ass for our kids and look what we get,” she says at one point. But in the absence of Valérie and Lucas, Michelle develops a kinship with her best friend’s son, Vincent (Pierre Lottin), who’s fresh out of prison and looking for work. The grace Michelle shows to the people she cares for — especially noteworthy in one very difficult, surprising conversation with Lucas — is matched only by the grace rightly afforded to Hélène Vincent in the rare film that’s been built entirely around her.
As a veteran of screen and stage alike, the 81-year-old Vincent has held roles aplenty in a career that spans over seven decades, yet few devote so much time to her gifts or make such good use of them either. The success of “When Fall is Coming” hinges on Vincent’s carefully calibrated but entirely natural performance, relying on subtle shifts in her expression and movements that bely a quiet maelstrom of feeling just below the surface. In a film as quiet and measured as this, what’s left unspoken is just as important, if not more so, than words in the script. Vincent’s layered performance through these silent moments is particularly striking, giving older audiences a rare, but much needed bout of heroism which doesn’t always take the easy route, even if Ozon’s script does somewhat towards the end.
Flashes of his mischievous wit and humor are peppered throughout — note the visitors who show up at church towards the end — but a distracting supernatural plot device later veers towards the mawkish, not quite fitting in with either the melancholic thrust of the film, or the few winking glimpses of Ozon’s signature comedic zeal. While the script enjoys toying with us just as much as we enjoy being surprised along the way, ghostly visitations introduced in the second half feel like they’re trying to manipulate us more brazenly, without thought, and Ozon risks pulling you out every time they occur.
Nevertheless, Vincent and the cast around her ably ground the story again. Balasko especially is a delight, warm but occasionally hardened on days when it’s tougher to find joy. Her chemistry with Vincent is entirely convincing, to the point where it’s hard to imagine a world where they haven’t been friends for decades. Lottin, usually known for comedy, brings an affable, rough-around-the-edges charm to Marie-Claude’s son, who’s confusingly named Vincent too. Erlos also impresses as a child forced to confront hard truths in a film where nobody is exactly who they seem, each embodying a different contradiction within Ozon’s leisurely, understated script.
“When Fall is Coming” could go harder, digging deeper into the moral quandaries barely hidden beneath the surface of this sleepy rural village. But like the morning frost in Vincent’s garden, this complexity proves a little hard to crack. No one’s proposing the story should be as radical as “8 Women” or as dark as “Swimming Pool”, but it’s almost too restrained at times, to the point where you end up wishing Ozon would push just that little bit more. Still, it’s hard to complain when the end result is this accomplished.
Grade: B
Music Box Films will release “When Fall Is Coming” in theaters on Friday, April 4.
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