Film Forum

France, Belgium, 2015
Directed by Guillaume Nicloux
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Gérard Depardieu
Approx. 91 min. DCP.

“Drops audiences in the more than appropriately named Death Valley, which ultimately functions not only as the perfect mirror for the film’s official title, but as the most suitable setting for the interaction between two cinematic giants. It’s as if the landscape had opened itself up into an unadorned crater of a stage to allow Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu [a reunion of the two LOULOU stars] to mingle with one another. They star as a divorced couple named Isabelle and Gérard—a humble acknowledgement from Nicloux that any attempt to forget the stature of these actors will be futile. Isabelle and Gérard haven’t seen each other in a long time, but they’ve reunited in California at the behest of their recently deceased son, Michael, who left them letters before he committed suicide intimating that they forge a reunion and that, if they follow his guidelines, he would reappear to them." – Slant

Reviews

“There are gentle rewards to be gained from the initially brittle, gradually tender rapport between two actors of contrasting greatness.”
– Guy Lodge, Variety

“The colour palette of bleached bone whites and brilliant blues, and the haunting music of Charles Ives add to the odd, mesmerising atmosphere.”
– Wendy Ide, The Observer