OUR DAY WILL COME

Occasionally you come across a film that just doesn’t rest comfortably in any one genre, or even take for its subject matter anything familiar. This is the case with Our Day Will Come (Notre Jour Viendra); when I saw that Vincent Cassel was again teaming up with Olivier Barthelemy – they worked together on the fantastically disturbing Shaitan five years ago – I expected something in a similar vein, another gruelling French horror perhaps. I couldn’t have been more wrong! If you could call Our Day Will Come anything at all, it’s Fear and Loathing for redheads…

Yes, Our Day Will Come manages to weave a story about two unhinged men on the lookout for solidarity and acceptance (with issues regarding sexuality and, err, hair colour to boot). For the most part it does this utterly straight-facedly, although a facetious strand almost has to run through the film and, when it breaks through, it’s laugh-out-loud hilarious. In places, it’s violent and uncomfortable. The whole yarn was odd enough to make me doubt what I should be feeling throughout – should I be laughing here? Are they for real with this? And most commonly – where is this going next?

The plot itself is fairly minimal: we begin by meeting a damaged, insular and let’s face it, unpleasant young man called Rémy (Barthelemy). Rémy has an awful relationship with his family, doesn’t have many friends, and the lovely young Gothic girl he meets whilst playing World of Warcraft actually turns out to be a guy. Cassel is an unconventional psychologist called Patrick who’d rather enjoy a nice packet of crisps than listen to people whinging on about their problems (though to be fair, he can and does combine the two). When he encounters Rémy fleeing from the family home after a violent quarrel, he decides to show his auburn affinity for the lad by picking him up and acting as his erstwhile mentor. Note: the type of ‘personal development’ Patrick offers is pretty unorthodox and involves chasing fights, pursuing girls and interacting with a host of jaded characters along the way.

The turning point for Rémy comes when he sees an advertisement for trips to Ireland. Of course! He wouldn’t be an outcast there – it’s wall to wall with ginger locks! He comes up with a plan and he needs his mentor to come along…

This is one of the most bizarre road trip movies I have ever seen: it veers from nasty to surreal, throws in plenty of bleak humour, but remains entertaining and watchable whatever course it takes. The performances from both lead actors are of a high standard and the relationship between them is intriguing (although at times the script veers a bit too far into abstraction, and some of their exchanges lost me somewhat). Cassel can perform madness with style and he does it well here, but he’s no wild-eyed loon – he’s often believable and charming, too. As for Rémy, he isn’t a likeable guy but he’s engaging and his character arc is something to behold as goes through various personal crises.

That said, this may be just a tad too oddball for every viewer – there’s little in the way of resolution here and some of the motivations for the two men’s behaviour can feel forced. One personal quibble would be that Rémy’s red-hair-related-angst feels less believable when you look more closely at his hair, which is barely red at all! Our Day Will Come might also suffer slightly by not fitting genre expectations and this may make it harder for the film to find its audience: it’s certainly not a horror film, and I’d struggle to say what it is, really. If you can go with it though, accepting that there are some issues, then it’s worth it: there’s a lot to like here. As a first feature-length film it’s encouraging to see director Roman Gavras (who was also involved with Shaitan) plumping for something so unusual – and this is a film with beautiful cinematography throughout.

The film is presented in 2.35:1, subtitled, with a ‘Making Of’ feature, some bonus music videos and the usual audio options.

Review by Keri O’Shea