Fin août, début septembre (1998)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Olivier Assayas

Writer:

Olivier Assayas (written by)

Release Date:

10 February 1999 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A story about the transition from late youth to early maturity, the film follows several friends and...

Plot Keywords:

Writing | Kinky | Train | Death

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Mathieu Amalric	...	Gabriel
Virginie Ledoyen	...	Anne
François Cluzet	...	Adrien
Jeanne Balibar	...	Jenny
Alex Descas	...	Jérémie
Arsinée Khanjian	...	Lucie
Mia Hansen-Løve	...	Véra
Nathalie Richard	...	Maryelle
Eric Elmosnino	...	Thomas
Olivier Cruveiller	...	Axel
Jean-Baptiste Malartre	...	Editeur
André Marcon	...	Hattou
Elisabeth Mazev	...	Visiteuse de l'appartement
Olivier Py	...	Visiteur de l'appartement
Jean-Baptiste Montagut	...	Joseph Costa

Also Known As:

Late August, Early September (USA)
Les regrets (France) (working title)

Runtime:

112 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Finland:K-12 | France:U | Singapore:M18 | Spain:13 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15

Company:

Dacia Films

Soundtrack:

Altar

Stereotypical French film

This is a pretty stereotypical French film in that involves a lot a not-terribly-interesting, very bourgeois French people talking endlessly about their personal relationships and the meaning of life (I wasn't expecting Hollywood-style gun fights and car crashes, but there has to be a happy medium somewhere). The bland lead is dealing with his failed relationship with his long-time ex-girlfriend and his inability to commit to his present lover (Virginie Ledoyen)as he also comes face-to-face with his unrealized literary ambitions and the imminent death of his older and slightly more successful mentor. The dying mentor, meanwhile, is a published but still obscure author. Although he is middle-aged, he has taken on an unusually precocious fifteen-year-old as a mistress--why? because this a French movie, the country that gave us Eric "Claire's Knee" Rohmer and was the first to publish Vladimir Nabokov's scandalous novel "Lolita"--making borderline pedophilia look vaguely classy seems to be a longstanding French cinematic tradition.

The best reason to watch this movie is for Virginie Ledoyen who is most familiar to American audiences as Leonardo DeCaprio's girlfriend in "The Beach" and for her appearance on the cover of a number of lowbrow men's magazines like "Maxim". She is actually a pretty good actress though and the movie shows some signs of life whenever she is on screen (which is all too infrequently I'm afraid). The only other remarkable things about this movie is the relative dearth of sex scenes (although there is one memorable very one with Ledoyen near the end)and the fact that many of these characters actually seem to have jobs(!)and are not just lounging on the beach or in the countryside as is usually the case in French movies. Other than that this film is very stereotypical. If you like talky French movies in general, you'll probably like it, but if not, I wouldn't bother.