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Nicolas Pariser makes solid, philosophically absorbed films — like “The Great Game” and “Alice and the Mayor” — that make no apologies for engaging with social and political trends. Classically directed and always well-cast,
they appeal to audiences, specifically French and Francophile ones, who like listening to conversations that many will characterize as intellectual tennis matches. However, with “One Minute to Midnight,” starring the always watchable Melvil Poupaud as a former hotshot journalist who lost his ambition, Pariser’s baldly didactic dialogue gets the better of him.
It’s not that the discussions — often better categorized as monologues — are uninteresting. Examining how new-generation feminism has changed the discourse is a worthwhile pursuit, and Lord knows making men realize that their behavior from 20 years ago did not exactly foster equitable relations between the sexes is a necessary corrective. (Though let’s face it, the lesson is still being learned.) The problem with “One Minute to Midnight” is that there’s little to it apart from these increasingly repetitive lectures, whose manifest didacticism creates resistance: It’s like being at a dinner party where the guests spend the whole evening explaining that Donald Trump is ruining America. We agree, but can we sprinkle the conversation with something else?
The setting is contemporary Paris in crisis, when civil unrest, rather amorphously presented apart from increasing numbers of military on the streets, makes evening strolls potentially problematic. Half-French, half-Italian Léo Saragossi (Poupaud) lives in Nancy and was in Paris on his way to a meeting with his late father’s executors in Ferrara, when the lawyer postpones and he decides to stay for the week. His girlfriend back home conveniently has an apartment for him to stay in, though it’s odd being in her space since their relationship is on the way out. At least his unwanted sojourn lets him catch up with his politically engaged daughter, Emma (Clara Pacini), who’s planning to quit art school — because what’s the point of art when the world is burning down?
The generational divide is front and center from their very first conversation: Léo’s tenderly nostalgic reminiscences of past love affairs are slapped down by Emma, who brusquely dismisses his pleasant recollections as mere male projection. “I won’t fall in love,” she firmly declares. “It means being part of men’s fantasies.” Unassertive Léo doesn’t attempt to change her mind, perhaps because he barely knows his daughter, the product of a brief liaison. Now that his current relationship is falling apart, he’s beginning to wonder about how he handled himself not just with Emma’s mother, but the other women he romanced over the years.
Chief among them was the beautiful, bewitching Tina, muse of everyone at the hipster startup magazine Léo once helped edit. Unable to find her address, he calls on his old colleague Alexandre (Thibault Vinçon), but impatient with the social scene around him, he skips out with Alexandre’s wife Éléonore (Léonie Simaga), who helpfully asks questions in order to let the film’s viewers know as much background information as can possibly be spoonfed in one scene. This is sadly not an aberration. Every time Léo meets someone, we’re treated to a lengthy explanation of who they are and what they’ve done for the past few decades. The pedagogical nature of these disquisitions is so in-you-face as to make us wonder whether Pariser uses the device for a purpose apart from filling in the narrative, though what that can be remains a mystery.
Thanks to Éléonore, he tracks down his old flame Armelle (Anaïs Demoustier), a socialist politician making certain compromises with the less radical left in order to ensure her views have a place at the table. “Do I owe you an apology?” askes Léo, reflecting on their brief time together, when she was an intern and he an editor in a position of relative power. With the wisdom that comes with age and maturity (two very different things), she shrugs off the question, telling him it was normal at the time. Women expected men to behave badly back then, she tells him, following up with the film’s best line: “We have other things to do besides helping with your insomnia.”
The message — get over yourself and move on — doesn’t really sink in, though Poupaud is such a likable presence, despite Léo’s hangdog aura and monochromatic wardrobe, that we can’t believe he treated these women as mere playthings. Continuing his search for Tina, he gets in touch with big-shot publisher François (Micha Lescot), who’s written a TV series being filmed based on their time together at the magazine, and then another colleague, Gustave (Pariser himself), now an Orthodox Jew.
Only after 50 minutes do we finally meet Tina (Golshifteh Farahani), a disillusioned wardrobe mistress for the TV series in which a young blonde actress plays her younger self. “I’ve had it with masculine self-pity,” she tells Léo, as all his fantasies crumble around him. Shortly after he leaves for Ferrara, where he meets Giulia (Chiara Mastroianni, very welcome), the half-sister he never knew, as they discuss their father’s inheritance.
The Italian coda is sweet, allowing Pariser to redeem the concept of love from the cynicism of a world wary of romance. But it feels too detached from the rest of the film, and there’s no need for a montage of Léo wandering the city streets, accompanied by even more unnecessary music. “One Minute to Midnight” attempts to grapple with how a middle-aged man can understand the ways relations between the sexes have changed since his youth, even questioning whether the power dynamic is too unbalanced to ever truly allow for equality. But it’s delivered as a lesson, and an uneven one at that. The talk may be the stuff of an interesting dinner party, ending with a pleasant Italian dessert, but dissecting every uneven course that arrives doesn’t result in a satisfying meal, especially for the brain.
