“A BIT BEFORE MIDNIGHT”

The fourth feature from French writer-director Nicolas Pariser, “A Bit Before Midnight,” is an engaging drama about a 49-year-old man undergoing an existential crisis. By turns thoughtful and provocative, it’s a sharply written piece that may cause the audience to undergo an existential crisis of their own. Beginning in present day Paris – albeit, a present day Paris where there are frequent riots, and the army is constantly on the streets – the film stars Melvil Poupaud as Leo, a 49-year-old former magazine editor. He’s on the verge of a break-up with his partner, and has just learned of the death of the father he never knew. Before traveling to Italy for the funeral arrangements, Leo spends time wandering around Paris and has a series of encounters with various people from both his past and his present, including his 17-year-old activist daughter Emma (Clara Pacini), the wife of an ex-colleague (Léonie Simaga as Eléonore), a former intern at the magazine with whom he was briefly involved (Anaïs Demoustier as Armelle), and Francois (Micha Lescot), another former colleague who is producing a TV show about the magazine they co-founded together.

The film is structured as a series of in-depth, introspective conversations as Leo takes stock of his life, particularly with regard to his previous relationships. In part, this is triggered by the fact that another former colleague – whom we don’t see – has recently been the subject of a #MeToo scandal, which causes Leo to seek out Amelle and seek reassurance that their relationship was entirely consensual. To that end, the answers Leo finds aren’t always the answers he wants. Amelle is very matter-of-fact about their fling, saying that she just took it for granted back then, but noting that she had been warned by a fellow intern not to be alone with Leo’s former colleague. Accordingly, Leo learns that two people may have completely different views of the same story, a point that the film returns to repeatedly.

Time and again, scenes and encounters don’t play out the way Leo – or the audience – expects. A noted example is his experience with Eléonore, where they both bond over their dislike of her husband (to whom she is still married), and have open conversations about arrogant male behavior. She puts him in his place (“I was about to find you lovable. Turns out you’re not…”), but there’s evident chemistry between them, and they sleep together anyway. However, the sex scene is filmed in a way that suggests the experience is unsatisfying for both parties, as if lamenting the difference between desire and reality. The film strikes a similar note when Leo finally tracks down Tina (Golshifteh Farahani), the colleague he was madly in love with back in the day, whom he remembers as being “abnormally beautiful.” He’s expecting a great rekindling of their former affair, but instead, her reaction is quite different, illustrating that romantic memory isn’t necessarily reliable and may be colored by nostalgia. She’s also very dismissive of his “masculine self-pity,” and indeed, it’s easy to see audiences siding with Tina over Leo in that respect.

The film takes a more amusing turn when Leo encounters Francois, and he’s forced to watch a TV production shooting a scene involving an actor playing young Leo, in which he’s heavily criticized by the other characters. This is another expression of the central idea that two people can have different memories of the same events and it’s nicely handled, with just a hint of an expression on Francois’ face that suggests he’s enjoying Leo’s discomfort and has written the scene in order to mess with him. Leo’s final encounter is with Giulia (Chiara Mastroianni), the half-sister he never knew he had, as they meet to discuss the funeral arrangements in Italy. Accordingly, the film’s emotional climax centers around answering questions that Leo has always had about his mother and father, and the final sequence is beautifully understated and quietly moving.

Pariser’s script is consistently engaging throughout, creating distinct characters and ensuring that the film moves at a decent pace. The dialogue is frequently excellent, though it’s rather telling that Pariser has given himself all the best lines, in his cameo as another former colleague who used to be an obsessive film nerd.

The performances are superb. Poupaud is a likable screen presence and he anchors the film well, his nice guy energy mitigating somewhat against the subject matter. As Eleonore points out, “Good guys are capable of realizing they have been total assholes.” Simaga is excellent as Eleonore, generating strong, natural chemistry with Poupaud, as is Demoustier as Amelle, delivering a lively, captivating turn in her single scene. In addition, the film is superbly shot by Julia Mingo, who gets a lot of mileage out of the film’s Parisian locations, while Christel Dewynter’s editing gives the conversations a natural rhythm. There’s also an excellent piano score by Benjamin Esdraffo that heightens the atmosphere of nostalgic self-reflection and romanticization.

Ultimately, your enjoyment of the film is likely to depend on how sympathetic you find Leo as a character. However, this seems perfectly in line with the concept of the narrative in the first place, that two people may have completely different experiences of the same events.