including this item on Swimming Pool, but Time to Leave
represents a return to his least stylized mode of work, as well as
being perhaps his most personal movie. The film centers on gay
photographer Romain (Le Divorce’s Melvil Poupaud, a sort of
Gaelic Matthew Fox), a standoffish and secular Parisian in his early
30s, who finds out that he has inoperable cancer and only a few months
to live. From there, Romain begins to act up. He breaks up with his
boyfriend Sasha (Christian Sengewald), spitting, “Like with all
couples, routine is killing desire.” And he lashes out at his sister
Sophie (Louise-Anne Hippeau), nastily assessing her fragile marriage
and asserting he has no desire to ever photograph her children. He’s
acting out of pure instinct, but showing all these emotions to come
from a selfish, self-centered place.

Romain’s deepest connection is with his grandmother Laura (Jeanne
Moreau), and it’s only to her that he can disclose the news of his
sickness. And then, just as Romain’s world is getting smaller and
turning inexorably inward, he’s happened upon by Jany (Valeria
Bruni-Tedeschi), a waitress who has had trouble conceiving a child with
her sterile husband. She makes Romain a proposition which he initially
refuses, but then — as illness and emaciation sets in — he comes to
more deeply consider.

Short (83 minutes), tightly shot and anchored by Poupaud’s excellent performance, Time to Leave
is essentially a melodrama drained of any florid touches. When tears
finally occur we don’t see them prominently featured, but rather only
the in-profile tracts of where they’ve already rolled. Ozon (top left,
with Poupaud) builds to an elegiac finale that doesn’t beseech you with
its lamentations. We all have a Time to Leave, the film reminds us, though for some that time is cruelly too soon. Distributed by Strand Releasing, Time to Leave is in limited release now, expanding throughout the month.