One Fine Morning
6.4(161 votes)
1h 52mOctober 5, 2022Overview
With a father suffering from neurodegenerative disease, a young woman lives with her eight-year-old daughter. While struggling to secure a decent nursing home, she runs into an unavailable friend with whom she embarks on an affair.
Cast
Léa Seydoux
Sandra Kienzler
Pascal Greggory
Georg Kienzler
Melvil Poupaud
Clément
Nicole Garcia
Françoise
Camille Leban Martins
Linn
Sarah Le Picard
Elodie Kienzler
Pierre Meunier
Michel
Fejria Deliba
Leila
Catherine Vinatier
Soeur de Georg
Samuel Achache
Mari d'Elodie
Key Crew
Director
Mia Hansen-Løve
Writers
Flora Rumpler, Mia Hansen-LøveProducers
David Thion, Philippe Martin, Gerhard Meixner, Roman PaulCinematography
Denis Lenoir
More Insights
Background
One Fine Morning (Un beau matin) is a poignant French drama directed by Mia Hansen-Løve, known for her intimate, quietly devastating films that explore love, loss, and the passage of time. Premiering at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, the film is deeply personal—Mia Hansen-Løve has described it as semi-autobiographical, drawing inspiration from her own experiences caring for a father with a neurodegenerative condition. The story follows Sandra (Léa Seydoux), a translator and single mother, as she juggles work, parenthood, and the painful task of finding a suitable care home for her ailing father, a former philosophy professor. Amid this emotional burden, she unexpectedly begins an affair with a married friend, reigniting feelings of passion and desire.
Setting and Cinematic Tone
One Fine Morning fits squarely within European art cinema, particularly the traditions of directors like Éric Rohmer and Olivier Assayas. It values emotional truth over plot twists, featuring long, observational scenes that invite viewers into the textures of daily life. Léa Seydoux’s restrained yet luminous performance anchors the film, portraying Sandra as both ordinary and quietly heroic.
Cultural Reference
The film resonates strongly within the context of contemporary French and European society. 1. Caregiving and the Aging Crisis: The film highlights the bureaucratic and emotional strain of placing a loved one in a care facility, a process familiar to many Europeans. Sandra’s struggles reflect the lived reality of the “sandwich generation”—those caring for both young children and aging parents. 2. Feminine Desire and Autonomy: The affair Sandra embarks upon speaks to a deeper theme in French cinema: the exploration of female desire. Hansen-Løve portrays Sandra’s affair not as scandalous, but as a bittersweet reclaiming of self in the midst of overwhelming responsibility. 3. Intellectual Legacy and Memory: Sandra’s father, once a towering intellectual figure, now lost in dementia, serves as a symbol of disappearing personal and cultural memory. His decline echoes the loss of intellectual identity—a national and personal mourning.