On My Way

Director and co-writer Emmanuelle Bercot doesn’t go in for a lot of plot, and the film’s one-thing-after-another trajectory, at least for a while, is engagingly shaggy.

There are so many echoes of “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” that it starts to feel like a barely disguised sequel. But those reminders, and the rather trite journey-of-self plot, are just decoration. This tender film works to remind us of how much we still love Deneuve, and succeeds in scene after scene.

Its realism is patient and inclusive.

Deneuve suggests the self-absorption of the beautiful, coping with the petty insults of age, making Bettie a bundle of nerves wrestling with a complicated past and an increasingly frazzled present. See it for her performance, and a lovely slice of French scenery.

Family members fight and reconcile over delicious-looking regional cuisine, new romantic possibilities present themselves, and Deneuve swans through all the heartstring-plucking silliness like the ethereal superstar she is. There are worse things in life.

Disappointingly tedious, On My Way is a contrived vehicle for Gallic icon Catherine Deneuve. At 70, she’s still the embodiment of placid ripeness we know and love, but the movie has little substance.

Unfortunately, Deneuve’s performance is not enough to elevate On My Way from the dredges of narrative tedium. Bettie may have gotten her groove back, but, in the end, the price the audience pays isn’t worth it.