Director: Bertrand Tavernier
Year Released: 1990
Rating: 1.0
Jane Birkin visits her dying Dad (Dirk Bogarde) and emotionally detached Mother in order to take care of him during most of his final days on earth - and to allegedly come to terms with their supposedly troubled relationship (which I gathered entailed Dad not reading Daughter's poems or some such trivialities that mean so much when you're five years old). Here's the crux, however: their relationship didn't really need that much mending, and the peace to be made with feeble Pop comes about rather easily. The picture never really follows Bogarde's character's advice to avoid sentimentality - it's awash in it, and the picture is belabored to the point of viewer alienation. The only strand that kept me personally hanging on is the question of whether he'll die on-screen or off - mercifully, it's the latter. Also, note to my future kid(s) (should any women in this world of ours be willing to help me produce one or more): if I only have a matter of months to go, you better keep me stock-piled with good cigars and scotch and not give me grief about it. When I tap-dance into Heaven or Hell or Nothingness, I want some 15-year-old Glenlivet inside my gullet.
