Let the Sunshine In

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Let the Sunshine In

 As reported by Dollyforme

 

The very lovely for her age Juliette Binoche stars in this cute little movie by acclaimed French director Claire Denis. “Let the Sunshine In” is a freewheeling, practically plotless journey through midlife friendship, love and romance. For the woman behind timeless stunners like White Material, Beau Travail, Nenette and Boni and Chocolat, this is existential stream-of-consciousness filmmaking at its zenith. It is a travelogue of personal catastrophes and quixotic longing, all of it centered upon actress Juliette Binoche giving one of the greatest performances of her Oscar-winning career.

Not to say this will be everyone’s cup of French cineaste tea. Binoche plays Isabelle, a talented Parisian artist who is currently in the throngs of a passionate affair with a married banker (Xavier Beauvois). Divorced with a young daughter, Isabelle is unwilling to give up on love. At the same time, she’s becoming increasingly frustrated with just how hard it is to find it. More, she’s not about to change who she is and what she wants from either her romantic partner or her career just to placate a man. Not that this has ever stopped her from seeing a number of different suitors, including a popular actor (Nicolas Duvauchelle) who has hired her to help do the production design for his latest theatrical endeavor and even a fellow artist (Alex Descas) her friends think might be taking advantage of her. But no one seems to fit the bill, and as things progress Isabelle is starting to wonder if she’s going to spend the last three or four decades of her life alone.

As funny as the film can be, a romantic comedy this is not. As emotionally cutthroat as many of the vignettes become, neither is this some sort of straightforward drama about an intelligent woman working her way through a midlife crisis. Instead, Denis has crafted something altogether unique. Working with co-writer Christine Angot, the director has decided to present a forty-something woman’s life as she sees it. Naked. Raw. Unrefined. Fragmented. Determined. Complex. Mysterious. Sensual. Frustrating. Joyous. Banal. Exciting. These are just a handful of the words that came to mind as I sat in the theatre taking it all in, Denis bringing the type of introspective precision to Isabelle’s current travails that reminded me of the perceptively hard-edged musings of author Virginia Woolf.

It’s a lot to have to sift through, and even if it appears not much is happening the reality couldn’t be more different. Isabelle is a woman navigating through uncertainty. She makes mistakes, doesn’t heed her own advice, listens to ideas from others she really probably shouldn’t and dives headfirst into romance when she arguably should be taking more time to better assess who it is she’s currently locking hands with. At the same time, Isabelle is fiercely independent. She takes charge of situations with confident authority. She is willing to do what it takes to satisfy her own carnal desires, not appearing to always care what others think of her when she does.

 

Let the Sunshine In isn’t exactly as chilling as that sounds; it’s just far more frank on the subjects of love, sex, and human connection than most films in the genre are. The story follows Isabelle (Juliette Binoche), a divorced woman seemingly having a mild mid-life crisis, as she navigates the joys, anxieties, and cruelties of dating with various flawed (if intermittently appealing) partners.

Isabelle is an artist living in Paris and sharing custody of her 10-year-old daughter with her ex-husband (also an artist). But for most of the film, she is alone—rattling around a cozy apartment and meeting her friends, and romantic interests, for dinner or drinks. Let the Sunshine In is mostly powered by conversation, but it hits hardest when people stop talking. That’s true in the film’s arresting opening scene where Isabelle has sex with Vincent (Xavier Beauvois), a portly middle-aged banker who aggressively focuses on trying to give her an orgasm, ignoring her quiet protestations that she already feels good.

Denis renders the encounter intimately while acknowledging the distance between the partners, keeping Binoche’s face in the frame as much as possible. It’s a depiction of uninspired lovemaking that doesn’t fully tip into frightening or slapstick territory; there’s comedy to be found here, sure, but also disappointment, angst, and a hope for something better. In the viewer’s later encounters with Vincent, he comes off as a bit more monstrous (he’s nasty and arrogant toward bartenders and waiters while on his dates with Isabelle). But Denis hinted at his hidden abrasiveness from the start.

In addition to Vincent, there are several other men in Isabelle’s orbit. There’s an unnamed actor (Nicolas Duvauchelle) struggling with alcoholism; though his emotional connection with Isabelle is immediate, he has profound struggles with intimacy. There’s also a salt-of-the-earth fellow named Sylvain (Paul Blain) who woos Isabelle at a bar but depresses all of her friends with his supposed lack of intellect. There’s the retiring Marc (Alex Descas), who’s in Isabelle’s friend-zone but sometimes seems like he’d make for a better husband. And then there’s her actual ex-husband, Francois (Laurent Grevill), whose bond with Isabelle is undeniable but comes with a lot of lingering disputes.

Every dynamic has its own fraught issues and an enchanting sense of possibility. By digging into the bleaker side of things, Denis lends the movie a healthy groundedness, and Binoche’s performance is so captivatingly human, it keeps the entire enterprise on track. Yes, Isabelle is sometimes sad, sometimes wracked with confusion and self-doubt, and often makes bad decisions. But she’s always trying to seek out what is meaningful and true in the world.

One minute Isabelle’s laughing and dancing (an extended set piece involving Etta James’s “At Last” is a fantastic interlude); the next she’s crying and bemoaning the death of her love life. Both states of mind feel equally believable. There’s no typical sense of forward momentum to Let the Sunshine In, but the same could be said of everyday existence. Denis’s foray into the often-goofy world of the rom-com is at once a cold bath of realism and a bewitching portrait of the power of love—however fleeting that feeling may be.

 

In short, Let the Sunshine In is a unique, spellbinding work, worthy of comparison to Denis’s best films. A must see film – for a rental or in the theatre.