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Time to Leave (2006)
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Reviews Counted:50
Fresh:38
Rotten:12
Average Rating:6.6/10
Consensus: A reflective look at our own mortality through the experience of a middle-aged French man, Time To Leave manages to pull at our heart strings without resorting to cliches, and leaves a lasting impression.
Theatrical Release:12-05-2006
Synopsis: Melvil Poupaud gives an extraordinary, complex performance in TIME TO LEAVE (LE TEMPS QUI RESTE), written and directed by iconoclastic French auteur François Ozon (8 WOMEN, SWIMMING POOL). Poupaud... Melvil Poupaud gives an extraordinary, complex performance in TIME TO LEAVE (LE TEMPS QUI RESTE), written and directed by iconoclastic French auteur François Ozon (8 WOMEN, SWIMMING POOL). Poupaud stars as Romain, a selfish, self-absorbed fashion photographer who is suddenly diagnosed with terminal cancer. Not wanting anyone to know about his illness, he brutally breaks up with his boyfriend, Sasha (Christian Sengewald), belittles his sister, Sophie (Louise-Anne Hippeau), and goes against his doctor's (Henri de Lorme) suggestion to give chemotherapy a chance. The only person he chooses to confide in is his grandmother, Laura (the legendary Jeanne Moreau), who has been estranged from the family for many years for what they considered inappropriate behavior after the loss of her husband. Knowing his time is running out, Romain travels around with a small digital camera, capturing tender moments that are very different from the high-profile fashion shoots he is used to. He finds solace with his beloved grandmother, but to everyone else he is cold and distant, seemingly going out of his way to not take the easy way out by rediscovering life and love in his final days. All the while, nearly everywhere he goes, Romain sees himself as a child (Ugo Soussan Trabelsi), as the past invades his temporary present. Beautifully acted and intelligently written, TIME TO LEAVE, the second in a proposed trilogy about life and death by Ozon (following UNDER THE SAND), is a challenging, compelling work with a simply magnificent ending. [More]
Starring: Melvil Poupaud, Jeanne Moreau, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Daniel Duval
Starring: Melvil Poupaud, Jeanne Moreau, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Daniel Duval, Marie Rivière
Director: Francois Ozon
Director: Francois Ozon
Producer: Olivier Delbosc, Marc Missonnier
Studio: Strand Releasing
Reviews for Time to Leave
An emotionally moving story, which somehow never dips into cliched sentimentality.
The entire film is a balancing trick, with scenes of potential banality redeemed at the last by a subtle twist or subversion. In their conflicted expressions, the performers prove themselves experts at their own high-wire acts.
Whilst avoiding many of the sentimental clichés that bedevil terminal illness movies, the briskly edited Time To Leave nevertheless lacks the emotional impact of Ozon's most memorable films.
Directed by the prolific François Ozon, Time to Leave stars Melvil Poupaud as a fashion photographer facing the certainty that his life will soon be over.
It's noteworthy for the performances of Melvil Poupard as Romaine and Jeanne Moreau as the grandmother-two people facing their own mortality, and trying to exit this world with grace and dignity.
Director Francois Ozon, who can define physical desire in a swift gesture or extend a moment of self-reflection with acute stillness, has become more confident and specific with each film.
A thoroughly cinematic and honest film that thrives on in-between moments and knows how to make them grand.
Time To Leave takes the time to reflect... it is among the least tricky of Ozon's films, which also makes it one of the best.
takes one of the most tired movie cliches of all time -- "I'm sorry, but you only have a few months to live." -- and turns into to a totally fresh look at what it truly means to live
We watch Romain change as he struggles with his mortality and, as he does, we come to care about him.
Time to Leave blows a fresh, skeptical wind through fairly corny melodramatic territory while keeping faith with the operatic emotions of the genre.
Ozon's drama offers no rousing speeches about living to the fullest, or heartfelt soliloquies on the nature of existence, only a bitterly honest admission that death happens to everyone and there is no use trying to stop it.
Una exploración muy personal, muy íntima y para nada condescendiente sobre la proximidad de la muerte a edad temprana. Muy buen elenco.
A lyrical and heart-affecting French drama that reveals that we must each encounter death on our own terms.
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