film synopsis
Three adult children gather at the family home on the seacoast near Marseille when their father is immobilized by a stroke. For Angele, a successful stage and screen actress, the place is haunted by a past tragedy. Her brother Joseph, a bitter, disillusioned Communist who has been retired from his executive job, arrives with his much younger fiancée, who has a wandering eye for the neighbors’ handsome son. Armand has never left, staying in the cove to run the family restaurant. But the village where they grew up is changing: soldiers now patrol for migrants landing on the shores, and rich young speculators are out to grab what they can from the old timers.
Veteran director Robert Guédiguian’s wise and moving family drama is a masterly meditation on mortality, reconciliation, politics and the mutability of all things. Filled with warmth, wit and amorous surprises, it’s a film that quietly lodges in your heart.