Marcelline is an actress. Forty, single and childless, she begins rehearsals for Turgenev’s A Month in the Country. Denis, the director, admires her greatly and promises he’ll make her happy on stage — she will shine. But things don’t go to plan.
Acting
Bruni Tedeschi directs herself through exquisite, painful vulnerability.
Direction
Meta-theatrical layers that collapse beautifully into raw confession.
Writing
Turgenev dialogues bleeding into modern Parisian angst.
Director
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
Marcelline
Noémie Lvovsky
Nathalie
Mathieu Amalric
Denis
Louis Garrel
Éric
Marisa Borini
Mother
Valeria Golino
Nathalia Petrovna
Maurice Garrel
Father
Bernard Nissile
Jean-Paul
Olivier Rabourdin
Marc
Laëtitia Spigarelli
Juliette
Marie Rivière
The costume designer
Simona Marchini
The aunt
Gilles Cohen
Jean-Luc, the manager
Arthur Igual
The swimming instructor
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Bruni Tedeschi cast her own mother, Marisa Borini, to play Marcelline's mother, layering genuine family tension into scenes about inherited disappointment.
The film speaks to a specifically French cultural anxiety around the 'femme de quarante ans' — the 40-year-old woman who has failed to secure the traditional markers of success.
FR
