Wednesday 22 May 2019
10:00am, 2:30pm, 5:00pm, 7:15pm
Directed by Claire Denis
France/Belgium (sub-titles)
Comedy/Romance 94 mins M
Academy Award winner Juliette Binoche is Isabelle, a Parisian artist and middle-aged divorcee moving from relationship to relationship: from her ex-husband for whom she still has affection; the caddish banker (Xavier Beauvois) who bosses her around; and the handsome actor (Nicolas Duvauchelle) who has an inability to make a decision. Hungry for love but afraid of never having a meaningful relationship with a man again, Isabell grapples with the keys to fulfilment. Joined by an illustrious cast, including Gerard Depardieu and Josiane Balasko, Binoche is radiant as a woman yearning to find happiness at a time when it feels like a rare commodity.
Loosely based on Roland Barthes’s A Lovers Discourse and an award winner at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, Let the Sunshine In is a sophisticated romantic comedy examining female companionship and sexual desire.
What reads like a standard romantic comedy premise is transformed, in the hands of master filmmaker Denis, into something altogether deeper, more poignant, and perceptive about the profound mysteries of love.
Reviews.
“Binoche is amazingly good in this role and it’s no small thing for a contemporary film to celebrate the sexuality of a middle-aged woman. But Juliette’s self-absorption becomes somewhat tiresome after a while”. – David Stratton, The Australian
“[An] elegantly observed romance about a divorced woman searching for “one real love” in a city of lupine losers”. – Peter Howell, Toronto Star
“The filmmaker and her character are equally untethered, enquiring women, not so much concerned with securing a definitive answer as engaging with the possibilities raised by their searches”. – Craig Mathieson, The Sunday Age