Critic Reviews

Exarchopoulos’s performance is remarkable for being so undemonstratively naturalistic, perfectly in tune with the film’s anti-sensationalistic presentation of its theme.

It’s not pleasurable to watch Garance get drunk and potentially waste her entire life, yet the way Exarchopoulos imitates both drunkenness and the act of alcohol withdrawal, full of reappearing panic attacks, rings hypnotic.

It’s not an easy watch, intentionally so, but Herry delivers a shockingly buoyant, propulsive film about the perils and pitfalls of addiction.

Another Day tackles a tough topic with profound grace. This kind of cinematic workmanship, so finely effortless that it’s almost invisible, doesn’t come by often.

It’s competently made and well-acted thanks to a blistering performance from Adèle Exarchopoulos, who perfectly embodies the pessimism and stubbornness of thinking you can give up a substance that you feel you’ve formed your soul around, but it doesn’t have enough of a visual or thematic identity to differentiate it from stories of a similar kind.

More chronicle than drama, it sticks faithfully by the side of its lovable mess of a heroine, whom Exarchopoulos plays with her usual no-bullshit funkiness, this time with too many glasses of wine down the hatch. She brings a dose of humor and a few grace notes to a movie in search of a tighter story, even if it deserves credit for its honesty.

This film piles on the mawkishness to add up to what’s basically a slightly scuzzed-up cautionary movie of the week.

Seeing Adèle Exarchopoulos act out at the height of her powers is absolutely worth it. There are certainly a handful of impactful scenes that demonstrate the breadth of her comic and dramatic skill. However, Garance frequently feels like a film of missed opportunities to take advantage of its megawatt star’s gifts and craft a character worthy of its portrayer.

As Another Day winds down, the weight of throwing almost everything against the wall, hoping it will stick, is a bit too much for the movie to bear. Despite her best efforts and avoiding melodramatic (if not often realistic) rock bottom moments, Herry cannot avoid treading into television movie of the week territory. All while a fiercely committed Exarchopoulos does her best to overcome the shackles of the genre.

This is a very glib and unsatisfying drama, whose essential naivety becomes apparent when the lead character is forced to confront the crisis in her life.