On My Way

When a sordid affair comes crashing to an end, sixtyish former beauty pageant winner Bettie (Catherine Deneuve), needing some time away from her mother (Claude Gensac) and the family restaurant, takes to the road. At first, her jaunt seems little more than an extended cigarette run, but as the emotionally fragile Bettie (who is also clueless about road maps) wends her way around the back roads of rural France, she encounters a series of individual men (with a few women along the way, mostly in groups) that illustrate her complex emotional needs and hang-ups.

There's a elderly fellow (Pierre Toulgoat) who takes long minutes to roll Bettie a cigarette (it's a beautifully executed scene, charged with a nicotine addict's nervous urgency but leavened by a moment of sustained human connection); then there's a cocky, but sweet, cigarette smuggler named Marco (Paul Hamy), half Bettie's age, who comes on to her with an enthusiasm she can scarcely take seriously; then it's a wife beater in a restaurant, followed by an immigrant security guard at a furniture store. It's to this latter that Bettie reveals the particulars of her odd romantic history, which includes multiple affairs and the farcical tragedy of her husband's death. Tied up with all of this is a kernel of anguish, never resolved, that involves both a long-ago beauty contest and the death of Bettie's one true love.

This winding road trip movie takes an abrupt left turn into even more fruitful dramatic and comic territory when Bettie's estranged daughter Muriel (Camille) pleads for a favor: She needs someone to watch her son Charly (Nemo Schiffman) while she checks out a job possibility in Brussels. If Bettie can divert her meandering course to pick the lad up and ferry him 150 miles to the home of his paternal grandfather's (G�rard Garouste), it might make a huge step toward healing a mother-daughter rift that has opened up over the years.

But first, there's another detour to take, one that places Bettie right into the center of her long-brewing inner maelstrom: A reunion with all the other regional French beauty queens from the year 1969, for a charity calendar. (Talk about facing your demons.)

Deneuve is still a beauty, and she shows here what range and nuance she's capable of. Director and co-writer Emmanuelle Bercot has concocted a film that's not neatly symmetrical, but by the same token it's not diagrammatical. There are surprises and nuggets of wisdom galore embedded in this film, which is about an imperfect woman finding a way to stop repeating the mistakes that have defined her life.

The special features on this Cohen Media Group Blu-ray release include extended and deleted scenes (one of which is quite long, almost a mini-comedy in and of itself), plus a short interview with Deneuve.

Fans of the actress, and of French film in general, will adore this movie. Think of it as "Mostly Martha" gone right off the rails, or even better, organize your own double feature.

"On My Way"
Blu-ray
$34.98
http://cohenmedia.net/films/on-my-way