By Chris Kriofske
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Claire Denis
Starring: Alex Descas | Gerard Depardieu | Josiane Balasco | Juliette Binoche | Nicolas Duvauchelle | Philippe Katerine | Sandrine Dumas | Valeria Bruni Tedeschi | Xavier Beauvois
Original language title: Un beau soleil intérieur
Country: belgium, france
Year: 2018
Running time: 94
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6423776/reference
Chris says: “Leave it to Claire Denis to open her latest by saddling Juliette Binoche with one heck of a blowhard beau and close it on an extended conversation between Binoche and Gerard Depardieu, decidedly *not* her beau (his actual role’s too good to disclose here.) In between, Denis’ seemingly ageless lead, playing a divorced, middle-aged artist repeatedly pivots from one man to another in search of The One, only for it to slowly dawn on her maybe, (to paraphrase Rebecca Bloom) the situation’s a lot more nuanced than that? Simultaneously confusing and enthralling like any good Denis, but also not quite like any of her other films (also typical for Denis.) 4 cats”
Thom says: “CHOCOLAT, BEAU TRAVAIL, NO FEAR NO DIE, I CAN’T SLEEP, TROUBLE EVERY DAY, FRIDAY NIGHT, THE INTRUDER, 35 SHOTS OF RUM, & WHITE MATERIAL are all films by the French director Claire Denis that reached the top rung on my rating system and over the years she’s become my favorite woman director, probably ever. So I was saddened when her film previous to this one BASTARDS hadn’t received top accolades and now this only good not great film. I hope she’s not in a decline. The luminous Juliette Binoche plays Isabelle a middle-aged artist who seems to be unusually preoccupied with sex, exploring it and finding the right partner to settle down with permanently. The problem is that she continually makes the wrong choices that only settle on bad sex with no real sense of closeness or closure. God knows that is something I should have related to as I went through a same long phase but once you work out the folly of such a routine it tends not to fascinate or even interest. For a more pleasurable romp through lady middle-age randiness I was far more pleasured with GIRLS TRIP which also had the added advantages of lessons actually learned, if not too hyperbolic. 4 cats“