Departure
An English mother and her teenage son spend a week preparing the sale of their remote holiday house in the South of France. Fifteen-year-old Elliot struggles with his dawning sexuality and an increasing alienation from his mother, Beatrice. She in turn is confronted by the realisation that her marriage to his father, Philip, has grown loveless and the life she knows is coming to an end. When an enigmatic local teenager, Clément, quietly enters their lives, both mother and son are compelled to confront their desires and, finally, each other.
A quiet, sun-drenched melancholy pervades this intimate drama. It's a film about the hushed confessions of the heart and the awkward, beautiful discoveries made in the liminal spaces of adolescence and mid-life. Feels like a long, thoughtful exhale.
