On a Magical Night

After 20 years of marriage, Maria decides to leave her husband. She moves into a hotel across the street and settles in a room from which she watches her husband and reflects upon their life together. While mulling over her decision, various people from her past appear, offering their opinions, including her late mother, her many lovers, and a younger, 25-year-old version of her husband. Renowned French director Christophe Honoré (Love Songs) takes a familiar topic—a couple in crisis after many years of marriage—and revives it with abundant creativity and cinematic strokes of genius. The result is a witty, entertaining comic fantasy, which screened at Cannes Un Certain Regard where Chiara Mastroianni won the prize for Best Actress.