Hear Me Out: ‘One Fine Morning’ is Léa Seydoux’s best performance
French filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve has been making quietly beautiful films for the past 20 years, earning herself several awards from prestigious festivals like Cannes and Berlin. With One Fine Morning, the director has released one of her greatest movies so far, with Léa Seydoux giving a career-defining performance as protagonist Sandra.
The movie follows Sandra’s attempts to come to terms with her father Georg’s declining health, which forces him into a nursing home. A widowed single mother, Sandra simultaneously embarks on an affair with an old friend, the married Clément, who offers her moments of respite from her emotional situation. Sandra must grapple with her father becoming a stranger – his condition causes memory loss, blindness and mobility issues – while balancing newness and possibility. These contrasting worlds reflect the natural, unpredictable swing of life, suggesting that we can still find hope, love and happiness in the worst of situations.
Seydoux’s performance is nothing short of incredible. Sandra has been alone, besides her young daughter, Linn, for five years and almost retreats into the belief that her romantic life is now over. Yet, after bumping into Clément, played by Melvil Poupaud, one of two Eric Rohmer stars in the movie, she unlocks something within herself that she’d almost lost. The two embark on a guilt-ridden affair, with Clément asking Sandra, “How could this body stay asleep for so long?” while lying beside each other.
Meanwhile, Sandra must move Georg into a nursing home, finding herself unable to fully process his condition as he loses himself to the disease. Surrounded by his books, Sandra declares that “they form his portrait”, possessing more of his soul than “the person at the nursing home”. It’s a heartbreakingly insightful observation, and Seydoux’s poignant yet reserved delivery to her daughter makes the scene the movie’s standout moment.
Greggory’s performance as Georg is also fantastic, expertly conveying how such cruel diseases strip a person of themselves, leaving them as nothing but a body, unable to recognise those they love. In response, Sandra shows amazing strength, attempting to compose herself as much as possible when she visits him, yet through Seydoux’s subtle facial expressions, her fear cracks through.
However, these tragic moments are contrasted with scenes of small joys, such as the adults pretending to be Santa Claus or Sandra, Clément and Linn standing together, overlooking the Sacre-Cœur. Hansen-Løve proves that in an unfair world full of pain and anguish – tremendous joy, optimism and beauty also exist. These moments of simplicity keep Sandra going through it all, and Seydoux allows her character to delight in these little scenes of happiness and love, allowing her demeanour to relax and embrace life’s pleasures.
Yet, whenever Seydoux is reduced to tears, it’s hard not to want to cry along with her. Her ability to convey depths of emotion without breaking into intense outbursts or screams makes her performance so special. There are no over-blown dramatic moments. Instead, Sandra moves between surrendering to her pain and maintaining composure in a way that feels wholly real.
The film moves through a dichotomy of happiness and sadness, highlighting life’s inevitable difficulties while illuminating the little things that keep us going. One Fine Morning is a beautiful exploration of the intersection between beginnings and endings, welcoming change and embracing both the good and the bad. Seydoux’s performance is easily one of the greatest of her impressive career, which has spanned Wes Anderson flicks, French indie dramas and James Bond films. However, with the emotionally poignant and deeply complex role of Sandra in One Fine Morning, Seydoux has proved just how tremendous she really is.
