Mr. Morgan's Last Love

Mr. Morgan’s Lost Love is an autumnal sonata about parents and children. I am surprised by how lifeless the film seems despite the participation of the charismatic Michael Caine. Like Haneke’s Amour, it emanates an academic coldness. The reason for the film’s strange lifelessness is not the slow pace of the narrative (the result of a combination of longer shots, scenes that blend together in terms of mood and visuals, and the refusal to make sharp camera movements), but rather the abstracted reality with which the narrative works. The film is interested exclusively in phenomena that do not disturb its melancholic tone and deepen the motif of late reassessment of one’s life values. Last Love attempts to rise above the details of everyday existence (unlike the neorealist Umberto D, which was based on those details), which causes it to lose touch with reality. For the director, who dedicated the film to her father, Last Love was perhaps a useful form of self-therapy and a way to express her awakening; for me, it was two hours of predictable relationship experiments. Due to the expansion of the narrative with the addition of a new character, you will get a sense of the ending long before the two storylines begin to converge. Instead of telling a story about the autumn of life without prejudice and exaggeration, as she most likely intended, Sandra Nettelbeck’s stark narrative style makes it an utterly bland time. 65% (07/17/2022)

This film was in sync with my gloomy mood today. That's not to say it was depressing, but the story of an aging man probably wouldn’t appeal to action movie fans. The plot slowly flowed along and nothing extraordinary happened, just everyday life. And that's probably why I had a good time. Michael Caine is a guarantee of quality, and Clémence Poésy had good chemistry with him (and she was very nice to look at). Although Gillian Anderson only appeared in passing, I really enjoyed the moment. An enjoyable film without unnecessary melodrama (even though you’d expect it in a film like this). (04/22/2021)