Julia(s)

Paris, 2052. Julia is eighty and on her birthday she looks back. Her life was full. But there is one moment: she made a choice when she was young and today she remembers it. The narrative leaves from there and shows another life of the same woman. The same year, the same city, a different decision. The two lives run side by side. One on the side of art, the other somewhere else. Neither is better and neither is wrong. Julia is looking for the same thing in both and does not find it in either. Olivier Treiner writes and directs. Lou de Laâge plays Julia; Raphaël Personnaz, Grégory Gadebois and Denis Podalydès are in the cast. It is a French production. The film opened on 21 December 2022 and runs two hours. Its form is parallel; two lives are told at once and the scenes answer each other. The matter it treats is choice; the film does not say one road is better than the other and builds no regret. The sections set in the future are not science fiction; 2052 is only a point of view. Lou de Laâge appears at the same ages in both lives and makes the distinction through her playing. The narrative works through music; one of the lives is spent inside it. Its limit is structure; the two lines are not equally strong, the narrative is long, and it gives a feeling of repetition. Who it is for: viewers who like French drama and parallel narrative. Who it is not for: it is long, repetitive, and the ending sad.