Let the Sunshine In

Claire Denis is incapable of making bad films, but this isn't among her best. Taking their cues from Roland Barthes's A Lover's Discourse: Fragments, Denis and co-scenarist Christine Angot pitch divorced Parisian artist Juliette Binoche into a midlife crisis that sees her lurch between various unsuitable lovers in a bid for self-validation. Unfortunately, every man she encounters seems to be on the wrong wavelength, with a married banker (Xavier Beauvois), an introspective actor (Nicolas Duvauchelle), a fellow artist (Bruno Podalydès) and a working stiff (Paul Blain) having their own agendas for pursuing her. Whether giving herself over to passion, dancing to Etta James's At Last or hearing home truths from fortune-teller Gérard Depardieu (in a bizarre cameo), Binoche radiates insecurity and confusion, as she looks for love in all the wrong places (while seemingly neglecting her ten-year-old daughter). But, for all the eloquence and wit of the performances and the mournful intimacy of Agnès Godard's camerawork, Denis has few insights to share about Binoche, her situation or her milieu. It's an accomplished work, but conventional.