Un Beau Soleil Interior (2017)

Directed by: Claire Denis | 94 minutes | drama, comedy, romance | Actors: Juliette Binoche, Xavier Beauvois, Philippe Katerine, Josiane Balasko, Sandrine Dumas, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Alex Descas, Laurent Grévill, Bruno Podalydès, Paul Blain, Valera Bruni Tedeschi, Gérard Depardieu, Schemci Lauth, Charles Pépinigne, Bertania de Montaigne Burgalat, Claire Tran, Lucie Borleteau, Walid Afkir, Julien Meunier, Suzanne Osborne

In ‘Un beau soleil intérieur’ Juliette Binoche plays Isabelle, a fifty-something who just doesn’t want to be happy in love. She is divorced and the mother of a – largely out of sight – ten-year-old daughter, and there is no shortage of male attention. But true love can’t wait, no matter how hard Isabelle tries.

Claire Denis, known for films such as ‘Les salauds’, ‘White Material and ’35 rhums’, films the French actress closely. Binoche is the radiant, sobbing and desperate center, with whom it is easy to sympathize, because man, what a loser she finds in her quest for Love with a big L.

“Look, you’re very charming, but I’m not going to leave my wife for you, because she’s extraordinary,” her lover tells her in between, just after he barks at the bartender to clear the bottle of booze NOW and gluten-free olives (!) can be ordered from him. The same man who asked her in the opening (sex) scene if she did come quickly with her previous boyfriend. We would have loved to give him that slap in the face ourselves.

The next attempt is with an actor, a lot younger than herself, but from the first conversation we experience as a viewer it is already clear that this is not going to be it for Isabelle either. Also married, but in divorce, quite dependent on the bottle and he admits that he sometimes gets violent. Still, their date ends in Isabelle’s bed, but the actor regrets it very much later.

And so Isabelle’s hunt for the ideal man continues. They are lightly comical, disturbing, but real-life moments, with an actress who makes the viewer forget that she is Juliette Binoche. She is a woman like many, without extreme desires or character traits, at most too insecure. She just craves someone to spend the rest of her life with and be content, or no, happy with. When she is desperate to call in ‘professional’ help, Denis, who wrote the screenplay with Christine Angot, has another wonderful surprise in store for the viewer. ‘Un beau soleil intérieur’ is a fine French film for everyone who believes that one plus one is more than two, but also for the happy singles and everyone in between.