Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud

In Paris, Nelly, out of work and near the end of her marriage, is offered by an older man to have her debt paid. What he wants in return is for her to type his memoirs. Arnaud is a former judge, wealthy and alone. What starts as a working arrangement becomes a bond that is never named. The film is not interested in love. It is interested in a mutual need that goes unspoken: each wants into the other's life and neither can admit it. All of the tension lies in sentences never said. The form is calm: apartments, cafés, the sound of a typewriter and long conversations. Claude Sautet advances through glances and pauses rather than events. It is Sautet's last film. Across his career he told the quiet crises of the French middle class, and this work is the last of that line. Michel Serrault plays Arnaud and won the César for Best Actor for it; Emmanuelle Béart plays Nelly. Sautet took the César for Best Director with this film. Who it is for: viewers who like French chamber drama and films that treat an age gap without romanticising it. Who it is not for: anyone waiting for events. The film is almost entirely conversation and nothing is clearly resolved.