Out of Season: Can Love Be Rekindled After A 15-Year Absence?

It’s said that love works in mysterious ways. This is highlighted in Out Of Season, a French romance drama that should have incurable romantics flocking to cinemas in droves.

Guillaume Canet and Alba Bohrwacher star as Mathieu and Alice respectively, a couple who were in a loving relationship until he terminated it without an apology and disappeared.

Fifteen years later they cross paths again. He’s an actor who walked away from a play four weeks before opening night, suffering from depression and receiving treatment in a wellness hotel. She’s happily married with a beautiful teenage daughter.

“When I look in the mirror it’s depressing,” he tells Alice who seems happy being reconnected with him, until doubt filters through.

How will this random rendezvous affect their lives after so many years? Can they recapture the love they shared, or will it just be a consensual and fleeting one-night stand?

The mood of the moviegoer when entering the cinema generally has a huge effect on their enjoyment level – and especially so is the case with this movie.

The problem lies in the execution of the production. It’s such an exhaustive and slow-paced movie that many may find it difficult to connect with these characters. Long walks along the beach and extensive monologues about their past lives promote restlessness and disinterest.

Out Of Season is a movie that cinephiles and film critics would enjoy and rate highly, but mainstream moviegoers and even traditional lovers of French cinema may find it underwhelming viewing. There are a couple of drawn-out scenes which seem nonsensical and completely irrelevant to the narrative, compounding to its two-hour running time.

This bittersweet reunion makes very placid viewing – the story feels stagnate, flatlining owing to a lack of much needed substance in the story.

On a positive note, it’s beautifully acted and produced, with very unique camera angles and aerial shots utilized. The musical score is atmospheric and soothing, but collectively these elements are insufficient to sustain interest.

There’s something quite special about French cinema but this is quintessentially a French cinematic offering which fails to impress.

Out of Season

**1/2

In Cinemas December 5.