lea seydoux – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

MOVIE OF THE WEEK May 8, 2026: SILENT FRIEND

May 3, 2026May 4, 2026 Jennifer Merin (Enzo Brumm, Gergely Pálosand, Ildikó Enyedi, lea seydoux, Luna Wedler, Marlene Burow, Silent Friend, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai

Like a prestigious literary novel, Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi’s deliberately paced drama Silent Friend deftly weaves together three stories that might seem, at first glance, to have little in common but are actually all variations on the same theme, connected by the same majestic, impassive ginko tree. Situated on the grounds of a German university, that tree — the titular silent friend — offers comfort and inspires curiosity over the course of more than a century.

Reviews

SILENT FRIEND – Review by Cate Marquis

April 28, 2026May 8, 2026 Cate Marquis (Enzo Brumm, Gergely Pálosand, Ildikó Enyedi, lea seydoux, Luna Wedler, Marlene Burow, Silent Friend, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai

A centuries-old, towering ginkgo tree in the botanical garden near the campus of a German university is the common thread connecting the stories of three scientists at that university, in Hungarian director Ildiko Enyedi’s intriguing, visually-thrilling drama Silent Friend. Painterly photography of the lovely, tree-filled campus, supplemented by striking, artistic micro nature photography, gives this drama spanning three time periods a dreamy, ethereal quality. The film tells the stories of three scientists on the same campus, in different time periods but all doing experiments to advance the understanding of plants and communication between plant and humans.

Reviews

THE BEAST – Review by Ann Lewinson

March 27, 2024March 16, 2025 Ann Lewinson A.I., Benjamin Charbit, bertrand bonello, gaspard ulliel, George MacKay, Guillaume Bréaud, Guslagie Malanda, lea seydoux, The Beast

It’s not every day that a turn-of-the-century tale gets a gender-swap, but that’s what Bertrand Bonello and his co-screenwriters Guillaume Bréaud and Benjamin Charbit
have done in The Beast, based on Henry James’ The Beast in the Jungle. In James’ novella, man-about-town John Marcher worries that a terrible catastrophe will befall him (the titular beast), and embarks on a decade-long platonic relationship with the wealthy May Bartram, which almost singularly consists of going to the opera and speculating on the nature of what may befall him. May falls in unrequited love with John, who is often read as a stand-in for the author, a closeted homosexual who is believed to have never had sex with anyone.

Reviews

ONE FINE MORNING – Review by Nadine Whitney

March 6, 2023March 6, 2023 Nadine Whitney lea seydoux, mia hansen love, motw, Movie of the Week, One Fine Morning

Scripted and directed by Mia Hansen-Løve, One Fine Morning could be considered a minor work in her catalog of films, but it is far from being small. Although the tale is intimate, it is a mirror to the experiences of many. Not all of us have to deal with a new and fraught romance, caring for a child, caring for a parent, keeping a job and re-defining ourselves all at once, but there are enough of those common happenings to make Hansen-Løve’s film one that will be deeply felt and true to life.

Reviews

ONE FINE MORNING – Review by T.J. Callahan

February 28, 2023February 28, 2023 T. J. Callahan lea seydoux, mia hansen love, motw, Movie of the Week, One Fine Morning

According to writer/director Mia Hansen-Løve, One Fine Morning is her Covid catharsis. It’s really her semi-autobiographical story of a daughter’s awareness of losing things that will never happen again. What we get is a simple, tender love story between a father and daughter as well as the emergence of a woman who has a lot of love to give. One Fine Morning is Hansen-Løve’s and Sandra’s growth and rebirth.

Reviews

ONE FINE MORNING – Review by Diane Carson

February 12, 2023February 18, 2023 Diane Carson lea seydoux, mia hansen love, motw, Movie of the Week, One Fine Morning

Thanks to Mia Hansen-Løve’s honest, sensitive writing, this female-driven film brilliantly avoids stereotypical pitfalls that feel manufactured and predictable. Through a myriad of events delivered with meticulous observation, Sandra shows the stresses struggling to be a good mom, locating a care facility for her father who has a neurodegenerative disease, and embracing the passion she feels for a married friend who responds in kind. Meantime, Sandra’s holding down a good job, offering her philosophy professor father’s books to deserving students, and somehow accommodating the joy and sorrow, grief and guilt that goes with all this.

Movie of the Week

MOVIE OF THE WEEK January 27, 2023: ONE FINE MORNING

January 21, 2023January 25, 2023 Jennifer Merin betsy bozdech, Jamie Broadnax, jennifer merin, lea seydoux, loren king, Marilyn Ferdinand., mia hansen love, nell minow, One Fine Morning, Pam Grady, sandie angulo chen

A Parisian woman juggles the demands of motherhood and daughterhood while trying to claim a chance at love in writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve’s intimate drama One Fine Morning. Anchored by star Léa Seydoux’s authentic, naturalistic performance as single mom Sandra, the film is a quietly moving meditation on what it means to be a caregiver to others when what you may need more than anything is to be cared for yourself.

Reviews

ONE FINE MORNING – Review by Loren King

January 18, 2023January 21, 2023 Loren King lea seydoux, mia hansen love, motw, Movie of the Week, One Fine Morning

Mia Hansen-Løve is one of the best directors working today for a body of films that reveal the small truths of ordinary lives. She’s not afraid to trust her story or allow her actors to be understated in exploring what it means to be a mother, a daughter, or lover. Like her recent, extraordinary films Things to Come and Bergman Island,”her latest One Fine Day is another semi-autobiographical journey that unfolds in a natural, deceptively simple way as Hansen-Løve tackles themes of loss and rebirth.

Festivals

Telluride Film Fest 2022: A Woman’s Wrap – Diane Carson reports

September 9, 2022September 8, 2024 Diane Carson Broker, cate blanchett, Close, Dorothy Yost, Empire of Light, florence pugh, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Holy Spider, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Kentucky Pride, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, lea seydoux, Luc Dardenne, Lukas Dhont, mia hansen love, nina hoss, Olivia Colman, One Fine Morning, sam mendes, Sarah Polley, sebastian lelio, TÁR, telluride film festival, telluride film festival 2022, the wonder, Todd Field, Tori and Lokita, Women Talking, Zar Amir Ebrahimi

Over Labor Day weekend, the 49th Telluride Film Festival presented thought-provoking films to its full complement of attendees, a nice rebound from the all-mask 2021 event. As always, no one could come close to seeing all the enticing films on offer, so tough choices and constant second guessing rules. This year women directed and dominated exceptionally strong selections that tell stories of quite different time periods and subjects. Intelligently and insightfully observing internal and external struggles, revealing the specificity of contemporary and historical pressures (so remarkably relevant today), the fest’s films reached out and inspired as they informed. We are, indeed, a global community.

Reviews

CRIMES OF THE FUTURE – Review by Susan Granger

June 6, 2022June 17, 2022 Susan Granger Crimes of the Future, David Cronenberg, Kristin Stewart, lea seydoux, Viggo Mortensen

Auteur David Cronenberg introduces avant-garde performance artists sometime in the dystopian future when humans have lost the ability to feel physical pain. Perhaps because people eat and metabolize plastic, the human body has evolved, unpredictably growing invasive, nonfunctional organs. It’s called Accelerated Evolution Syndrome. Crimes of the Future is extreme, stomach-churning and definitely not for the squeamish.

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