Everyone assumes Mathieus life is marvelous.
He is married to a celebrity news anchor.
This is the woman who was too busy even to say goodbye before he came here.
‘Out of Season’
But the worst of it is that he is there: He has pulled out the play.
When it came to it, he was afraid to do something new.
Nobody knows it yet, but he is a failure.
Vapid music tinkles in the spa hotels vast foyer.
The ridiculous treatments begin with inflatable trousers wired for some kind of unnamed stimulation: hocus-pocus for the rich.
Or when everyone wants a selfie?
But then, what about the people who dont want selfies?
That makes him just as uncomfortable.
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So far, so much amusing French farce.
Then, suddenly, the cinematic weather changes.
They laugh a good deal.
She feels like a failure.
No wonder Mathieu left her, she says.
Someone who never achieves anything, when he is a star.
She goes home to the doctor, makes the dinner and weeps.
Its predictability would be the death ofOut of Seasonbut for two saving graces.
As an example of romance as a genre, their scenes together constitute a masterclass.
Shots of the shuttered seafront houses pop up unexpectedly to punctuate the lovers meetings.
There also are scenes drawn directly from real life, like slices of documentary sandwiched into the fiction.
Alice invites Mathieu to come to a wedding at the retirement home where she teaches.
Ultimately and most unfortunately their inability to do exactly that becomes exasperating.
Heartache never knows when to stop, but a film should.
