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He has opted to forsake overt sentimentality (a good thing in my eyes) and has chosen to leave more than a few of his plot points unresolved, giving us sketches of some of the characters, which more than suffice to create a connection between them and the viewer.

As one example, we follow the daily life of Frederic (an economics professor and author) in more depth than his other siblings by virtue of the fact that he is the only one who resides in France, where the film takes place. Adrienne lives in the United States (in New York as a graphic designer) and Jeremie is an executive for shoe manufacturer Puma, living abroad in Beijing with his family for the indefinite future. When Adrienne announces to her siblings her plan to marry her longtime boyfriend (who we have met ever so briefly but crucially in a scene just prior), it is a moment marked by good cheer and acceptance, but it isn’t something the film has any plan (or need) to follow up on.

Another example is in the penultimate scene, with the items in question finally restored and on display. A museum guide efficiently but hurriedly pushes her charges on through. (Assayas pointedly follows one distracted chap who wanders off to answer his cell phone, discussing his plans for later with his girlfriend, and then hurrying to catch up as his group exits out of frame.) Frederic and his wife make their way through the exhibits at a more measured pace, and in discussing the experience afterwards, over coffee, it becomes more than apparent through their conversation and their attitudes that they have now separated. What led to this? There is no animosity (indeed, the final fadeout on them is of the pair laughing uproariously at an inside joke), but there is mystery. Each of the dozen or so distinct chapters of the story ends on such a fadeout, thus providing continuity, even as they acknowledge the intentional narrative gaps.

Assayas’ frequent cinematographer Eric Gautier obtains a magnificent balance in shooting the interiors and exteriors of the film, finding great natural light in the idyllic meadows and fields that surround the family home, as well as inside the dwelling itself. This is not a film of gloomy shadows and dark chambers. This is mirrored as well in the score that finds both nostalgic tones and a more forward-looking modernity.

Among his actors, Assayas gets the biggest surprise out of Juliette Binoche, almost unrecognizable in certain scenes underneath blonde highlights and a manner best expressed by an almost omnipresent slouch. Edith Scob as Helene has perhaps the trickiest role as she has to cast the long shadow (and some light) after she disappears from the film, so that we can see the effect Helene has on her children after she dies. Helene seems to hide a deeper melancholy underneath a surface eccentricity that’s far easier for her family to relate to and Scob is able to suggest the loggerheads of those two opposing emotional states.

Which brings us to the quote at the top uttered by Frederic’s daughter, Sylvie. It is almost the final line of the film and it calls into question the wisdom of Helene’s thoughts earlier on the younger generation’s connection to items from their family’s past. Sylvie and her brother are hosting a weekend party for all their friends as a final goodbye to the house and Gautier’s camera functions almost as a party guest for the first part of this sequence following Sylvie and a friend through the rooms in a long tracking shot, simply observing youth at play, setting up music (several genres are chosen and rejected), smoking pot, hanging out.

Sylvie goes off to find her boyfriend in the woods and it is in her brief conversation with him that the film becomes transcendentally beautiful and sad. In Sylvie’s mature acceptance of death and endings, Assayas finds a way to plant a seed for new beginnings. It is wholly appropriate that the film fades out on them hopping the fence and taking off through a field so they can stay hidden from their friends. As the camera gently rises and pulls back, Incredible Sting Band’s “Little Cloud” plays on the soundtrack, lead singer Robin Williamson musing:

“And as my cloud pulled out of view/There came falling down a gentle shower of rain/Happy rain come falling down . . .And every drop as it fell, it smiled.”

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