Melvil Poupaud is a man with few ambitions left who connects with former friends and lovers to understand his relationships with women and the changing dynamic between past and present. Nicolas Pariser makes solid, philosophically absorbed films — like “The Great Game” and “Alice and the Mayor” — that make no apologies for engaging with social and political trends. Classically directed and always well-cast, they appeal to audiences, specifically French and Francophile ones, who like listening to conversations that many will characterize as intellectual tennis matches.
However, with “One Minute to Midnight,” starring the always watchable Melvil Poupaud as a former hotshot journalist who lost his ambition, Pariser’s baldly didactic dialogue gets the better of him. It’s not that the discussions — often better categorized as monologues — are uninteresting. Examining how new-generation feminism has changed the discourse is a worthwhile pursuit, and Lord knows making men realize that their behavior from 20 years ago did not exactly foster equitable relations between the sexes is a necessary corrective. (Though let’s face it, the lesson is still being learned.) The problem with “One Minute to Midnight” is that there’s little to it apart from these increasingly repetitive lectures, whose manifest didacticism creates resistance: It’s like being at a dinner party where the guests spend the whole evening explaining that Donald Trump is ruining America.
We agree, but can we sprinkle the conversation with something else? The setting is contemporary Paris in crisis, when civil unrest, rather amorphously presented apart from increasing numbers of military on the streets, makes evening strolls potentially problematic. Half-French, half-Italian Léo Saragossi (Poupaud) lives in Nancy and was in Paris on his way to a meeting with his late father’s executors in Ferrara, when the lawyer postpones and he decides to stay for the week.
His girlfriend back home conveniently has an apartment for him to stay in, though it’s odd being in her space since their relationship is on the way out. At least his unwanted sojourn lets him catch up with his politically engaged daughter, Emma (Clara Pacini), who’s planning to quit art school — because what’s the point of art when the world is burning down? The generational divide is front and center from their very first conversation: Léo’s tenderly nostalgic reminiscences of past love affairs are slapped down by Emma, who brusquely dismisses his pleasant recollections as mere male projection.
Now that his current relationship is falling apart, he’s beginning to wonder about how he handled himself not just with Emma’s mother, but the other women he romanced over the years. Chief among them was the beautiful, bewitching Tina, muse of everyone at the hipster startup magazine Léo once helped edit. Unable to find her address, he calls on his old colleague Alexandre (Thibault Vinçon), but impatient with the social scene around him, he skips out with Alexandre’s wife Éléonore (Léonie Simaga), who helpfully asks questions in order to let the film’s viewers know as much background information as can possibly be spoonfed in one scene.
This is sadly not an aberration. Every time Léo meets someone, we’re treated to a lengthy explanation of who they are and what they’ve done for the past few decades. The pedagogical nature of these disquisitions is so in-you-face as to make us wonder whether Pariser uses the device for a purpose apart from filling in the narrative, though what that can be remains a mystery.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
