When Autumn Falls Review: Melodramatic Walk In The Woods

François Ozon’s When Autumn Falls marries a fantastic lead performance to soap opera plotting, with compelling but uneven results.

It is certainly an exploration, but it is far from calm. Ozon’s narrative zigs and zags in many different directions, fearful the audience might find it too humdrum, but Vincent’s lead performance just about keeps it in situ.

When a new Ozon film comes along, you can play a guessing game as to which auteur he’s going to homage/rip off this time. When Autumn Falls follows his Chicago-esque romp The Crime Is Mine, and recent years have seen him invoke everyone from Guadagnino (Summer of ‘85) to Lubitsch (Frantz) to Almodóvar (The New Girlfriend). His latest is trickier to pin down as it comes with so many genre twists and tangents. Ozon himself cites Sacha Guitry as an influence, but the film’s grounded look and multiple upsets are more reminiscent of Coronation Street, for better or worse.

Michelle is busying herself in preparation for a visit from her daughter Valérie (Ludivine Sagnier) and grandson Lucas (Garlan Erlos). Sagnier always excels at barely-hidden contempt, and a simmering discomfort is injected into proceedings as soon as she arrives onscreen. Ozon is a master of drip-feeding hints of backstory, and the relationship between mother and daughter is a vital lynchpin to the action. An unspoken past haunts this family, thickening the tension. This knack for slow-build character-building keeps the audience invested in When Autumn Falls, even when more characters and increasingly outlandish plot developments arise with little warning.

Ozon’s best dramas stir some ambiguity into the mix to keep the pressure building. From the opening scenes of Michelle busying herself in quiet domesticity, Ozon identifies her as a practical, peaceful woman, but seeds of doubt are sown in her moments of absentmindedness, and in her disappointing relationship with Valérie. Vincent’s performance is a quiet but powerful one, with mild eyes that hint at both a painful past and hope for the future.

Michelle’s desire to do right by all around her sees her frequently bringing Marie-Claude to visit her son in prison, and it makes it all the more heartbreaking when a cooking faux pas sends Valérie to the hospital. The question of whether Michelle was acting maliciously or if she just picked the wrong mushrooms is never entirely answered, and it does provide the desired unease, but Ozon is more determined to add to the ambiguities of When Autumn Comes than to resolve them. This would have been fine if it didn’t mean piling plotline on top of plotline just to keep the tensions going.

No sooner has Valérie taken Lucas and returned to Paris, than Marie-Claude’s son Vincent (Pierre Lottin) is to be released from prison. Despite her feelings of guilt leading to a depressive episode, Michelle is supportive of the newly reunited mother and son, but the three lives are soon to be bonded in unlikely ways. When Autumn Falls builds its increasingly outlandish domestic dramas with all the subtlety of a soap opera with one eye on being renewed for another season.

Some developments are simply begging for the audience to slap their foreheads in disbelief. Vincent wants to help Michelle to thank her for her friendship, but the lengths he goes to take their relationship from endearing to disquieting in no time. The increasingly hectic plotting sits uncomfortably alongside the quiet Burgundy setting. DoP Jérôme Alméras wraps the landscape in muted ochres and browns, which make Vincent’s actions and the subsequent fallout stand out jarringly.

Despite its penchant for melodrama, When Autumn Falls is firmly anchored throughout by Hélène Vincent. With her pink puffer jacket and unsteady walk, she looks like a breeze could blow her away, but the emotion underneath is deep and touching. Her caring gaze invites audience sympathies when even she admits wishing the worst on some people. It’s a layered and careful performance, capturing a particular brand of elderly loneliness with remarkable ease. So good is Vincent, in fact, that the rest of the film struggles to match her. The supporting cast are solid in delivering Ozon’s convolutions and occasional contrivances, but it’s Vincent’s show. Ozon has made more considered films, but his eye for character rarely fails him. A sturdier and more confident plot next time would work wonders, but this walk in the autumnal woods will do for now.

When Autumn Falls will be released in UK & Irish cinemas on March 21, 2025 and in US theatres with the title When Fall is Coming on April 4, 2025.