Let the Sunshine In (2018)

the audience applauded

Fantastic!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Well written by Christine Argot, well shot by Claire Denis, and very well acted by Juliette Binoche; but the main character irritates.

I love Juliette Binoche, so I took a chance on this movie. Hated it. The script seems like it was made up just before they started shooting. Nothing engaging about any of it. Juliette's talents are wasted. I finally left after about an hour into it and that was at least fifty minutes too late. The characters are poorly written and lack any appeal. The story is weak and mundane. Don't waste your time or money.

I found this pretty interminable and ultimately inconsequential. Quite a self indulgent exercise.

"Un beau soleil intérieur" or "Let the Sun Shine In" or "Bright Sunshine In" or "Dark Glasses" is a French/Belgian co-production in the French language released this year in 2017 and it is the newest work by experienced writer and director Claire Denis. The film runs for slightly over 90 minutes and this also includes closing credits as they interestingly enough were displayed already during the final scene. But we will get to that later. The heart and soul of the film is French Oscar-winning actress Jukliette Binoche, in her 50s now already, but still pretty stunning. The entire film is basically about encounters she has with men, most of them sexual, except the one guy talking to her at the fish shop, the needy one. But everybody else she somehow ends up in bed with while according to the movie she is looking for real true love. But she is definitely also a bit on the promiscuous side and the ways in which we see how desperate she really is are perhaps not enough to hide that, like the crying scenes or the way in which she talks to the Black fella near the end. But maybe my problem with this movie is also how very unlikable all the protagonists are really. Maybe they are just flawed like everybody else, but is that really justification enough? The one hitting rock-bottom is definitely the married guy we see during this long bar scene, perhaps the least likable film character from 2017. We also see him in the very first scene of the film, a sex scene with Binoche's breasts visible and you could think that she lays her innermost out there and it could have been a good start for a great movie. Too bad it is never a great film. Binoche still looks really good for her age and this may be the only amazing component.Now I want to say a couple words in detail about the final scene. First of all, the credits did not really take anything away from it for me. The only result is that you obviously won't check for the names, but then again you don't otherwise either do you? Finally having Depardieu and Binoche hand it to each other eventually could have been one of the finest film scenes of the year, but it really is no such thing. It is all about Depardieu here, never about Binoche as she is basically just listening. As we don't see Depardieu before except in this very short random car scene, I was quite surprised about his inclusion. It felt very random and the scene is really all about the actor, never about the characters. Such a shame as I like Depardieu and Binoche really a lot and I so so wanted this to be better. Back to the entire film, there were some audience members who laughed a great deal from start to finish in my viewing, but I personally must say the comedy component here was minimal to me. It felt way more about the relationship drama and the protagonists longing for and lack of romantic happiness in her life. Still quotes and reactions felt extremely unauthentic on many occasions, which is why I must say that the characters' actions and reactions made no sense on more than just a few occasions. And this is a negative deal breaker in my opinion. I would not say that the performers were bad or anything, actually they elevated the material at times even, but they can only be as good as the script they are given. And what they were given here was most of the time the opposite of quietly captivating, namely over-the-top and unrealistic. I quite like Binoche (and Depardieu), but this was a really big downer as a whole. Pretty disappointed here and being one myself I cannot even recommend it to Binoche's fans as they will maybe dislike it as much as I did. It is nowhere near real failure territory, but it's also nowhere near being among the better or even best French films from 2017. A country I love in terms of filmmaking. But this one here is the negative example potentially confirming the rule. Go check it out.