Mr. Morgan's Last Love (also known as Last Love) is a 2013 film based on Françoise Dorner's French novel La Douceur Assassine. It is written and directed by Sandra Nettelbeck and stars Michael Caine and Clémence Poésy.
| Mr. Morgan's Last Love | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Sandra Nettelbeck |
| Written by | Sandra Nettelbeck |
| Based on | La Douceur Assassine by Françoise Dorner |
| Produced by | Astrid Kahmke Frank Kaminski Philipp Kreuzer Ulrich Stiehm |
| Starring | Michael Caine Clémence Poésy Justin Kirk Jane Alexander Michèle Goddet Anne Alvaro Gillian Anderson |
| Cinematography | Michael Bertl |
| Edited by | Christoph Strothjohann |
| Music by | Hans Zimmer[1] |
Production companies | Senator Film Sidney Kimmel Entertainment |
| Distributed by | Senator Film (Germany) A-Film Benelux MSD (Belgium) Image Entertainment (US) |
Release dates |
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Running time | 116 minutes[2] |
| Countries | Germany Belgium United States France |
| Languages | English French |
| Box office | $1,927,963[3] |
Synopsis
The film centres around a retired, widowed professor (Caine) living in Paris who develops a special relationship with a young French woman (Poésy). That's the central structure for a sensitive story about changing relationships for this professor and his son, and life's meaning.[4]
Cast
- Michael Caine as Matthew Morgan
- Clémence Poésy as Pauline Laubie
- Justin Kirk as Miles Morgan
- Jane Alexander as Joan Morgan
- Gillian Anderson as Karen Morgan
- Richard Hope as Philatelist
- Anne Alvaro as Colette Léry
- Louis-Julien Petit as Sleeping Student on Bus
Production
The film was shot in Paris, Brittany, Brussels and Cologne in August 2011.[5]
The book's French protagonist Monsieur Armand was changed to American Mr. Morgan.[6] Nettelbeck wrote the screenplay with Caine in mind.[7]
Reception
Mr. Morgan's Last Love received mixed reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 31% rating, based on 39 reviews, with an average score of 4.67/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Last Love benefits from a typically strong Michael Caine performance, but it's ultimately too mawkish and dawdling to make much impact."[8] Metacritic gives the film a score of 36 out of 100, sampled from thirteen reviews.[9]
Peter Bradshaw, writing in The Guardian, called the film a "coy and unendurable tale of a tastefully sexless May-to-December romance".[10] "This dull, dawdling film, adapted from Françoise Dorner’s novel “La Douceur Assassine,” eventually succumbs to sentimentality," wrote Stephen Holden in the NYT. [11]
