The mystery of what the heart wants, and what it might give in return, is the theme of this humane, sympathetic movie from Mia Hansen-Løve. For all its tendency to soap opera, it has a lovely happy-sad sweetness. The setting is the briskly and urbanely photographed Paris that Hansen-Løve showed us in her second film, Father of My Children from 2009. Just as in that movie, she shows us familiar tourist landmarks without them seeming cliched. And of course, fathers again loom very large.
Léa Seydoux plays Sandra, a single mum, apparently widowed for many years, who speaks fluent English and German and works as an interpreter. We see her doing live audio-headphone translation at an international media conference, and also translating a powerful speech from a US army veteran at an Omaha beach reunion. The effect is to show us a clever, self-effacing professional who has been pushed to the margin of things, a little. She wears workaday jeans and sweaters and has a short haircut which looks businesslike rather than chic or gamine.
