Susan Granger’s review of “Last Love” (RLJ Entertainment)
The only reason to see this bleak melodrama is to watch 80 year-old masterful craftsman Michael Caine as a cantankerous old coot.
Set in Paris, the story revolves around lonely, expat Matthew Morgan (Caine), a retired philosophy professor from Princeton who is still mourning the death of his beloved wife Joan (Jane Alexander) three years earlier. Unable to speak much French, Morgan is assisted by free-spirited Pauline (Clemence Poesy), who is young enough to be his granddaughter and teaches the cha-cha at a local dance school. Their unexpectedly tender (non-romantic) friendship infuriates Morgan’s disapproving, disagreeable adult children – cynical Miles (Justin Kirk) and callous shopaholic Karen (Gillian Anderson) – who arrive from the United States after Morgan attempts suicide, taking an overdose of sleeping pills in his spacious Left Bank apartment.
Adapted from the novel, “La Douceur Assassine” by Francoise Dornier, it’s written and directed by German-born Sandra Nettlebeck (“Mostly Martha”), who cannot overcome her own terminally weak, cliché-riddled and confusing script which feebly attempts to deal with the dilemmas of aging, parenting and loss. Although Morgan reminds twentysomething Pauline of her deceased father, why she’s so attracted to this dyspeptic senior citizen is never explained. Nor is the sudden shift in her affections from Morgan to his embittered son. In addition, the pacing is far too slow, and the conclusion the lacks emotional resonance of Michael Haneke’s “Amour” or Peter O’Toole’s somewhat similar “Venus.”
In its favor, however, there’s Michael Bertl’s stunning, picture-postcard cinematography of the City of Light and the local countryside of Saint-Malo in Brittany, echoing the gentle score by Hans Zimmer. And if French actress Clemence Poesy looks familiar, she played Fleur Delacour in the “Harry Potter” films.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Last Love” is a dreary, depressing 4. It’s so downbeat that even the considerable talents of Michael Caine cannot enliven the viewing.
