My Favorite Season 1993

Berthe, Marthe Villalonga an elderly widow, is forced by her declining health to close the French farmhouse where she has spent much of her life. She moves in with her daughter Émilie, Catherine Deneuve and son-in-law Bruno, Jean-Pierre Bouvier, who share a legal practice and have two grown children: Anne, Chiara Mastroianni, a law student, and Lucien, Anthony Prada, who was adopted. In spite of Émilie’s efforts, Berthe is not happy in her daughter’s bourgeois home in Blagnac.

At night, Berthe sits by the swimming pool talking to herself and finds the house pretentious. Worried about her mother’s physical and mental health, Émilie visits her unmarried younger brother, Antoine, Daniel Auteuil, a neurosurgeon. They have not seen each other for three years, since they quarreled at their father’s funeral. Émilie informs Antoine of their mother’s condition and invites him to Christmas dinner with the family.

On Christmas Eve, Antoine arrives at his sister’s home as Émilie, Bruno and Anne are leaving for midnight mass. Antoine urges himself not to get carried away and spoil the evening. As he wanders through the house looking for his mother, he surprises Lucien, who works at a nightclub in town, making out with Khadija, Carmen Chaplin, Émilie and Bruno’s Moroccan secretary, who has been invited to spend Christmas with the family. Antoine promises not to tell anything. When he finds his mother’s room, Berthe is delighted to see him, but complains about living with Émilie. She dislikes Bruno, has no affection for the grandchildren and does not value Émilie’s efforts to put her at ease. Dinner is lively, but after the youngsters leave for Lucien’s room, tempers flare between Bruno and Antoine and they exchange blows. Antoine leaves with a bloody nose and Berthe departs with him. Talking later with Bruno, Émilie says she loathes what they have become. Anne is distraught by the family’s dispute and looks to Khadija for solace.

Berthe returns to live alone at her farm but suffers a stroke. This forces Émilie to visit her brother once again. Antoine has moved to a small apartment in Toulouse. He is glad to learn that Émilie has separated from Bruno. The siblings agree to place their mother in a nursing home. They pick up Berthe and on the drive they remember old times. When Émilie and Antoine sing as they used to when they were children, Berthe cheers up. On a stop during the trip, Antoine fulfills a childhood dream and goes skinny-dipping in a river. Berthe introduces her children to the director of the retirement home. She took good care of her children and they are now two very successful professionals who are too busy to take care of her, she says bitterly. Pressured by her brother, Émilie spends the night at Antoine’s apartment. He gives her a drug to help her sleep and joins Khadija and Anne at the bar where Lucien works. Anne has now given up her law studies and works in a music shop. Lucien and Khadija have a rocky relationship. Antoine tries to rekindle the childhood closeness he enjoyed with his sister.

When Antoine and Émilie visit their mother at the retirement home, her physical and mental health have greatly deteriorated. She says she wishes she had had a third child because that child would have taken care of her. Émilie and Antoine remove their mother from the nursing home. An exam at the hospital where Antoine works confirms their suspicion that Berthe is in her final decline. Émilie moves back to her house at Blagnac. Antoine breaks into the house to talk to her, and they have an argument. They recriminate each other about their behavior toward their mother. Feeling guilty, Antoine makes a halfhearted attempt to commit suicide, jumping from the balcony of his apartment and breaking a leg. Berthe dies alone at the hospital. After the funeral, Antoine, Émilie, Bruno, Lucien, Anne and Khadija meet at the house in Blagnac and have breakfast outdoors. During the conversation Anne asks the others which is their favorite season since she does not have one. Before Antoine’s departure Émilie recites a poem she learned as a song as a child. She used to sing it while waiting at school for the holidays to be reunited with Antoine.