Critic Reviews

Another worthy performance comes from Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi.

It's a magnificent miniature, a supremely tender work that's full of emotion and even sentimentality.

This is the most personal, deeply felt film from the gifted director of "Under the Sand" and "Swimming Pool." Ozon leaches his melodrama of all sentimentality, and moves us all the more.

Time to Leave just might be Ozon's best work yet. He tackles a sensitive, off-putting subject with a dignity that will put viewers at ease. Poupaud connects as the dying man and Moreau is - Moreau, a French national treasure.

The film rests entirely on Poupaud's shoulders, and he rises to the demands of a complex, deeply unsympathetic role.

What makes the film intriguing, and somewhat off-putting, is that Romain is deliberately portrayed as a heel; he strains his relations with his lover and his family, except for his grandmother (Moreau), to the breaking point.

Time to Leave may not have made me cry, but it's affecting nonetheless.

As with all Ozon's work, Time to Leave resounds with grace notes. The wide-screen cinematography by Jeanne Lapoirie offsets (or maybe disguises) the movie's narrow scope, and there's something private--withholding--in Poupaud's beauty that gives his misanthropy a touch of mystery.

A short and succinct film but it lingers long in the memory.

Time to Leave subordinates narrative to mood. Since the end of the story is never in doubt, the only surprises lie in the particulars of Romain’s behavior and the nuances of sorrow, determination and doubt that pass over Mr. Poupaud’s face.