I decided to see ‘Basse saison‘ primarily because of the presence in the cast of Emmanuelle Devos, an actress I admire enormously. I don’t think I’ve ever seen before a film directed by Laurent Herbiet, but he has a good record as a screenwriter, having written the scripts for the last three films of Alain Resnais, to whom this film is dedicated. I’m assuming that the filming was done during the pandemic. The film was released straight to television in late 2021. I’m generally pretty circumspect about feature-length fiction films that aren’t released theatrically, but I had and a few pleasant surprises when the low-character drama or comedy format and the minimalist approach imposed by the economics of filming for television suited the subject matter. In the case of ‘Basse saison‘, however, my fears turned out to be somewhat justified.
Carole and Richard are a couple in their 50s for whom almost everything seems to be going wrong. They are financially ruined and forced to live in his parents’ vacation apartment during the off-season. Richard’s attempts to sell such apartments as a real estate agent fail. Their marriage seems to be at an impasse and the stormy winter weather with rain, wind and cold doesn’t seem to do anything to improve morale. At the moment when Carole seems determined to climb the balcony to kill herself, Anthony appears in the story – a small gangster with an injured leg who turns out to be an old friend of Richard’s. Pursued by other villains, he proposes to the couple to recover some money from a house. In other words – a burglary. The proposal seems dubious, but the two have nothing left to lose, so they accept it. When everything goes wrong, is there room for life to go worse? Those who see the film will find out.
The idea would not be bad, and many comedies of this kind are based on the involvement of novices in robberies and conflicts between gangsters in which it is their ineptitude that saves them and is the main source of humor. The realization, however, is quite sloppy, especially at the level of details, and that makes the whole story a bit unbelievable. Emmanuelle Devos can do no wrong, and Eric Caravaca and Simon Abkarian are more than acceptable comic partners. The cinematography is excellent and the ‘winter by the sea’ atmosphere comes across the screen well. ‘Basse saison‘ is not great but neither a film to be avoided if you want to spend an hour and a half of light entertainment.