UNE VIE A T'ATTENDRE

Twelve years ago, Jeanne (the fabulous Nathalie Baye) left her lover Alex (Patrick Bruel) without a single word of explanation...

Now forty, Alex runs a popular restaurant with his rather despondent brother Julien (Michael Cohen) and best friend Camille (Anouk Grinberg). Alex never truly recovered from Jeanne's departure, but he's met an interior designer Claire (Gerladine Pailhas), and finally feels ready to settle down and start a family. That is, until, he inexplicably bumps into Jeanne, who has returned to Paris to see her ailing mother Emilei (Danielle Darrieux).

The two pick up where they left off and head to Italy for a weekend of romance. But both are immediately torn between their never-extinguished desire, and the sort of courteous, responsible, adult behaviour that is expected. So begins their emotional tailspin. Should they leave Paris together for a new life? Alex has already proposed to Claire, and Jeanne's husband and son are due to arrive in three weeks...

This absorbing and thoughtful debut for writer-director Thierry Klifa (who was a film journalist at Studio magazine for eleven years) is refreshingly free of histrionics in its depiction of joy, doubt and disarray. The handsome and talented cast fully inhabit their roles as comfortably well off professionals who have been seared, for better or worse, by sexual passion.

France - 2004 - Drama - 106 mins
In French with English subtitles

Director: Thierry Kafli
Script: Thierry Kafli, Christopher Thompson
Cast: Nathalie Baye, Patrick Bruel, Geraldine Pailhas, Anouk Grinberg, Michael Cohen, Danielle Darrieux