Bright Days Ahead (French: Les Beaux Jours) is a 2013 French romance film directed by Marion Vernoux.[2] It was screened in the Gala Presentation section at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.[3] In January 2014, Fanny Ardant received a nomination for Best Actress at the 39th César Awards.[4] Based on a novel by Fanny Chesnel, it tells the story of a married woman who retires at age 60 and joins a computer class, where she starts an affair with the much younger instructor.

Bright Days Ahead
Film poster
Directed byMarion Vernoux
Written byFanny Chesnel
Marion Vernoux
StarringFanny Ardant
Laurent Lafitte
Patrick Chesnais
Jean-François Stévenin
Fanny Cottençon
Catherine Lachens
Alain Cauchi
Marie Rivière
Marc Chapiteau
CinematographyNicolas Gaurin
Edited byBenoît Quinon
Music byQuentin Sirjacq
Release date
  • 19 June 2013 (2013-06-19)
Running time
93 minutes
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench
Budget$3.3 million
Box office$4.2 million[1]

Plot

edit

In a port on the north-west coast of France, Caroline retires from her husband's dental practice at age 60. Her married daughters give her a trial subscription to “Les Beaux Jours”, a club for retired people, where she joins the computer class. She and Julien, the instructor who is in his thirties, feel a mutual attraction and start an affair of snatched encounters. Her behaviour becomes increasingly reckless: wearing heavy make-up, taking up smoking, drinking lots of wine, endlessly receiving and sending texts, ignoring family friends, disappearing at odd hours, and coming home with clothes awry. Her husband warns her that he and others can't help noticing. Nevertheless, she books a short holiday in Iceland for her and Julien. At the airport, as Julien is chatting to a young Englishwoman on their flight, Caroline realises that she must release him to his sort of world and return to hers. She rings her husband to fetch her home.

Cast

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ "Les Beaux Jours (2013)- JPBox-Office". Retrieved 12 March 2016.
  2. ^ "Bright Days Ahead". unifrance.org. Retrieved 15 August 2013.
  3. ^ "Bright Days Ahead". TIFF. Archived from the original on 2 September 2013. Retrieved 15 August 2013.
  4. ^ "Berenice Bejo, Lea Seydoux, Roman Polanski Among France's Cesar Awards Nominees". Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 1 February 2014.
edit