The Final Lesson

At ninety-two, Madeleine decides to fix the date and the conditions of her own death, and tells her daughter Diane and her son Pierre. She hopes to prepare them gently, but the news lands in the middle of the family and unsettles everyone. The film spends the time that remains not arguing for or against the decision but watching the children look for a way to live with it. Madeleine keeps her mind, her humour and her appetite for life to the end, and that is exactly the final lesson of the title. Pascale Pouzadoux adapted it from the autobiographical book Noëlle Châtelet published in 2004 about her own mother’s last days, which won the Renaudot des Lycéens the same year. Marthe Villalonga plays Madeleine and Sandrine Bonnaire plays Diane.