Review: Mr. Morgan’s Last Love


Sir Michael Caine plays the title character, a retired professor living in Paris who nonetheless doesn’t speak any French. His beloved wife (Jane Alexander, seen in flashbacks) has just died, and he has no idea what to do with himself. He’s despondent without her, even as we flash-forward a few years. But then he meets pretty, young Parisian cha-cha teacher Clémence Poésy and she seems to bring him back from the brink and give him a new lease on life. His kids visiting from the States (played by Justin Kirk and Gillian Anderson), however, have no idea what to make of this new development and question the much younger woman’s motives.

 

Although far from the biggest turd Sir Michael Caine has dropped in his lengthy and uneven career, this 2013 film is insubstantial, clichéd, and unworthy of his enormous (if uneven) talent. Unlikeable supporting performances by Justin Kirk and Gillian Anderson certainly don’t help, but the main issue here is that writer-director Sandra Nettelbeck (“Mostly Martha”) doesn’t give us anything new, interesting, or even cinematic. This is TV movie material, and very, very small. The characters of the selfish and seemingly uncaring kids played by Kirk and Anderson (who really miscalculate their performances) are beyond tired and hackneyed.

 

That said, I wasn’t entirely happy with the main character, either. I know the French have a reputation for being rude, but the locals in this have a point: Caine, if he was going to live in France, should’ve learned the damn language.

 

Caine and pretty co-star Clemence Poesy are pretty good (though Caine still can’t navigate his way around an American accent after all these years), but the film isn’t, and the very talented Jane Alexander yet again finds herself wasted in a nothing role. What did Caine see in this material that made him want/need to make this? It’s old-hat and way too long for a story so insignificant. It follows an extremely familiar trajectory with the only difference being that it’s Michael Caine this time around. If that’s enough of a difference for you, have at it. I needed more.

 

Pretty mediocre stuff, I’m afraid, and it gets worse the longer it goes on as it doesn’t even adequately payoff the obvious May-December romance the filmmaker obviously starts out heading towards. The ending is terribly unsatisfying and not believable at all for these characters.

 

Rating: C

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