A Few Hours of Spring

Alain is forty-eight and just out of prison. With no job and no money he has to move back in with his mother Yvette. There has been no warmth between them for years; they eat at the same table without speaking. Then Alain learns that his mother has an inoperable brain tumour. Yvette has already decided: she will go to Switzerland and end her life on a day of her own choosing. What is left is the few months, and the question of whether either of them can take a step toward the other. Stéphane Brizé directs, with Vincent Lindon as Alain and Hélène Vincent as Yvette. A hundred and eight minutes. There is no big scene and no moment swollen with music; everything is in what goes unsaid.