By John Corrado

★★★ (out of 4)

The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 8th to 18th.

The latest from writer-director Mia Hansen-Love, One Fine Morning is another resonant and engaging romantic drama from the French filmmaker. Léa Seydoux stars as Sandra, a translator whose father Georg (Pascal Greggory) is suffering from a neurodegenerative disease. Once a celebrated philosophy professor, Georg is now losing his eyesight and has grown confused, speaking in sentences that don’t always make sense.

Sandra struggles to find a good nursing home for him in Paris, while also trying to keep up with the demands of her freelance work and caring for her young daughter Linn (Camille Leban Martins). Things change when she runs into Clément (Melvil Poupaud), an old friend who is married but unhappy in his relationship, and pursues an intensely passionate affair with Sandra.

If One Fine Morning doesn’t quite reach the heights of Hansen-Love’s Bergman Island, a standout of last year’s festival, it’s still a film that delivers some lovely moments, matched by a few beautiful uses of classical music. The film unfolds with a naturalism that never feels mundane, including an immensely bittersweet subplot involving Sandra struggling to decide what to do with her father’s possessions and large library of old books.

The emotional centre of the film comes from Seydoux’s solid, lived-in performance, as she brings both believability and texture to her role as a woman learning to balance the needs of those around her with her own wants and desires for her life.

Public Screenings:

Sunday, September 11th – 12:00 PM at TIFF Bell Lightbox 3

Wednesday, September 14th – 5:30 PM at Scotiabank 1

Friday, September 16th – 9:30 AM at Scotiabank 4