'WE'LL END UP TOGETHER' ('NOUS FINIRONS ENSEMBLE' to give this its original French title) is an M Rated film which I saw at my local independent movie theatre earlier this week. This film is the long awaited follow up to 2010's acclaimed 'Little White Lies' that is once again Written and Directed by the French filmmaker, Actor, Writer and Producer Guillaume Canet. With seventy acting credits to his name, eleven as Writer, twelve as Director and seven as Producer, Canet is currently in pre-production with his latest offering 'Asterix & Obelix : L'Empire du Millieu' in which he stars, writes and Directs. This film opened in France on 1st May 2019 where it went on to become the second highest grossing film in that country of that year, and was only released in Australia on 6th August and has garnered generally positive press so far.
The years have passed by since middle-aged restaurateur Max (Francois Cluzet) has welcomed his friends at his idyllic summer house in the chic beach community of Cap Ferret. The group have generally reconnected there for his birthday, but since things didn’t exactly go to plan last time around, they haven’t seen much of one another in the intervening years. Max is busy tidying up his beach side home away from home as the film opens up. He is alone, he sleeps a restless sleep waking up with a start, and continues cleaning inside and out. Then he hears a noise coming from outdoors and goes to investigate. To his surprise, all crouched under a window, are his long time albeit somewhat absent friends who have rocked up unannounced to help Max celebrate his 60th birthday. But, their collective presence is not altogether a welcome one.
Those close friends are Marie (Marion Cotillard), Eric (Gilles Lellouche) with his hapless buddy turned assistant Antoine (Laurent Lafitte), together with Eric's young daughter Mila and her domineering and over bearing nanny Catherine (Tatiana Gousseff), Vincent (Benoit Magimel), Alex (Mikael Wattincourt), Isabelle (Pascale Arbillot) and Sabine (Clementine Baert), Max's new love interest. In the intervening years - Marie still mourns the loss of the love of her life Ludo and drinks and smokes heavily, tells crass jokes and says that her seven year old son Nino represents 'everything she hates in the world', Eric has become a famous Actor but is strapped with his child because the mother is wasted on MDMA in Ibiza and is worse than useless, Antoine is a child trapped in a man's body who is at the beck and call of Eric, physiotherapist Vincent and his wife of fourteen years Isabelle have split and he is now gay and with choreographer Alex, Isabelle has since come out of her shell and is now a much more confident care free fun loving woman, and Sabine as Ludo's mother cares deeply for Max. After trying to dismiss all of his friends saying that it's not convenient, they weren't invited, they're taking advantage, and that he has nothing to celebrate anyway he finally relents and says that they can stay for two nights. Meanwhile, a Real Estate Agent calls around to inspect the property, because Max is wanting to sell, but Max wants this done on the hush hush and doesn't want his friends to know, or his ex-wife Vero (Valerie Bonneton) finding out.
And so having renewed acquaintances and said their hello's with lukewarm embraces, they begin to eat, drink, catch-up on old times and make merry. Max however, is teetering on a knife edge, barely able to adjust to his new found company for the weekend. In an aside conversation that Max has with Eric (having both buried the hatchet after all these years following Eric's accusations at their last meeting which resulted in Max turning his back on them all), we learn that Max is bankrupt having had to sell his hotel, his restaurant and his yacht to finance some investment that went south with all of his money and hard earned savings. His is now practically penniless hence the reason for his depressive state and for needing to sell the beach house. To take the pressure of the weekend off Max, Eric rents a nearby property right on the waters edge that has enough accommodation to house them all, plus a heated swimming pool and all the comforts of home and is within easy reach of Max's place. And so the next day, the group all decamp there, under the guise that Max has rented the place so they can be more comfortable.
Max's group after a hearty dinner, go out clubbing until closing time, and by the time the next morning has rolled around Vincent has slept with his ex-wife Isabelle, Eric and Marie have spent the night together and Veronique and Alain have got it on. The next morning Max, Antoine and Marie go tandem sky diving, and all three of them have the time of their life doing it, except Max wet his pants on the way down, for which he is seriously derided by the others over lunch. Max demands to pick up the tab for lunch but when he goes to pay his credit card is declined. Fortunately the restaurant manger is understanding and says to pay later, when he has the money. Some of the group then depart and go and pay Veronique a visit. Suspecting something is not quite right Max walks along the beach and peers through the fence of his property to see his friends enjoying Veronique's company and her new found friends. This sends Max into a spiral of depression, and arriving back at Eric's rented house, he throws himself off the jetty with a noose around his neck. But his attempted suicide is thwarted by a rope that is too long, a jump that is too short, and the water that is too shallow. Back on dry land, Max explains to the group his current state of affairs and his state of mind, and the group all rally round reaffirming their deep rooted friendship and love for their friend in his time of personal crisis.
Later that afternoon Vincent and Alex have fallen out because Alex suspects that Vincent got it on with his ex-wife the night before, and three teenage boys and Marie's young lad Nino go out on a catamaran without advising their respective parents. A search party is hastily arranged resulting in the boys capsized catamaran being discovered in choppy seas with the three teenagers clinging to the upturned vessel but no signs of Nino who got swept out in the current. Marie is distraught, spots him and jumps into the swell with Eric in tow, eventually rescuing the seven year old boy. That night, over dinner and a game of 'Charade's' everyone is in a much lighter mood, guards are let down, and there is an air of relaxed contentment amongst the group of friends.
The next day after a walk along the beach, the group all depart for the respective homes, each going their separate ways. Max and Sabine head for their house to meet with the Real Estate Agent and the new owners who made an on the spot offer. The new prospective buyers are down from Paris, fell in love with the place and have already hatched plans to put in an outdoor swimming pool, pull down fences, and make all manner of alterations. Their two young boys swing on the branch of a tree snapping it, and fall to the ground, unharmed. Sat around the dining table, the Real Estate Agent begins to read out the terms of the contract of sale. Max's mind begins to wander and he has a vision of his friends all rocking up, with bottles of wine in tow, begging him to come outside. Sabine sits at the end of table looking pensive. Max looks up, stops the Real Estate Agent in his tracks, and says that he's not selling, and hastily escorts the would be buyers and the Agent off his property. Sabine smiles, relieved. As they drive away from the property, Max calls his friends asking 'where are you?'
This film is an easy watch, and anyone who has been away for a weekend either to the coast, or the mountains or the wineries with friends and stayed in a big old rambling house together will be able to relate to the relationships, the dynamics, the emotions, the eating and drinking, the games and the exploits shared amongst a particular group. In that respect 'We'll End Up Together' is not unlike Rachel Ward's 2019 Australian offering 'Palm Beach' - beautiful beach side locale, check; rich mostly successful middle class long time friends, check; a dose of drama, discontent and redemption, check; plenty of wine, food and cigarettes, check again; and moments of laugh out loud humour, raw emotion and quirks that are quintessentially French, check once more! The cast all give top notch performances that are grounded in reality and believable and in particular Francois Cluzet, Marion Cotillard, Gilles Lellouche and Benoit Magimel are all standouts, and all the characters look as though they are having a genuinely good time during production. On the down side this is an all Anglo-Saxon white cast with not a single person of colour to be seen, and the only minority group shown here is represented by Vincent who has jumped the fence, but has no problem it seems jumping back to whence he came. There is no political unrest, threats of terrorism going on in the background which have thwarted France in recent years, in fact everything is all sunshine and rainbows in Cap Ferret, save for the situations and circumstances of the groups own making during their weekend away at the coast. But I guess the message amongst all the angst, bickering, emotion and inevitable make-ups is that true friends stick by your side no matter what, and in this regard, the films message is unmistakable. 'We'll End Up Together' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.
-Steve, at Odeon Online-
