“I’m at a strange juncture,” admits the main character, Léo (Melvil Poupaud),—a massive understatement—in French writer-director Nicolas Pariser’s intoxicating, perspicacious meditation on love, sex, memory, power, consent, toxic masculinity, bad behavior and the male desire for absolution.
One Minute to Midnight (Un peu avant minuit, which translated really means “a bit before midnight”) centers on Léo, a 49-year-old, writer who doesn’t much write anymore and lives in eastern France, who is about to go on a very personal odyssey back into his past in an attempt to reexamine his life and actions. His journey is initially an apprehensive one, but it becomes a necessary and deliberate quest.
Léo’s current relationship is on the skids, and he just learned about the death of his biological father who he never knew and is planning to go to Italy for the reading of the will, where he will meet his half-sister (Chiara Mastroianni) for the very first time.
Before he leaves, he has a number of conversations with people from his life, past and present, which confuses and confounds him, and also bring some clarity.
He has reconnected with his estranged activist daughter, Emma (Clara Pacini) who is a borderline radical feminist who believes that “love is a very perverse way of objectifying and dominating women.”
He attends a gathering of some of his old magazine colleagues, most of whom he never liked, after one has been accused of rape and sexual misconduct. There he meets Eléonore (Léonie Simaga) who soon has him questioning his own past behavior. She reminds him that his group was once mockingly called, “the pack,” because of the way they’d use and discard female staffers, who were never allowed to write anything. “I was about to find you likable, but you’re not,” she searingly tells him. Although she does change her mind.
Léo begins a revaluation of his past, especially when it comes to his relationships with women.
He meets up with a former intern, Armelle (Anaïs Demoustier), who he had a past fling with and is now a Congresswoman. She is taken aback by his queries and can’t really give him the answers he seeks. She does point out that what was considered normal back then would be seen as monstrous today.
Our protagonist then seeks out his biggest crush from the past, Tina (Golshifteh Farahani), now in charge of wardrobe, ironically, on a TV series being made about Léo’s past group of magazine writers, where he’s a supporting character. Tina expresses her frustration with men needing to be forgiven or absolved, “everything is still all about them!”
The 10-plus minute scene between Léo and Eléonore, early in the film, is so beautifully played and keenly written that it has more power than all of Luca Guadagnino’s misguided After the Hunt, from last year.
But the film is really structured in a way that most of the narrative exists in lengthy two-person scenes that are never less than hypnotic because of the potent and dense writing and the outstanding acting from the entire ensemble, buoyed by Poupard, a Cesar Award nominated-actor who has been doing extraordinary work for decades (Time to Leave, In Bed with Victoria, By the Grace of God). Here he delivers one of his richest screen performances.
The genius of this film is how it is, indeed, about a man attempting to understand his own past behavior, but the movie never makes excuses for him or tries to pardon what he might have done. Instead, it allows the women to do most of the talking. And asks him to listen.
Un peu avant minuit is a timely, thought-provoking gem.
The film is screening In Competition at the Venice Film Festival.
The title translation is tricky as it’s appearing differently on different sites (A Little Before Midnight on Letterboxd, One Minute to Midnight on Rotten Tomatoes).
In French and Italian, with English subtitles.
