Sophie Fillieres was partly responsible for one of my favourite horror films, I serial killer romance called SOMBRE (1998). Her output since then has tended more toward comedy, which might explain why I hadn't seen much else by her - comedy being the one genre that really doesn't travel well. So it was a pleasant surprise to come across this deceptively rich rom-com that initially gives the impression it is a bit of high-concept forth, but it is so much more than that.

Fillieres' directs her own daughter Agathe Bonitzer, in the role of the younger Margaux, who comes across forty-something Margaux (Sandrine Kiberlain, who is near-perfect in her understated comic delivery) at a friend's part, and swiftly realises that they may in fact be one and the same person. What really elevates this film from the hum-drum or the hokey is the quality of Fillieres attention to the passing years between her two Margauxs.

This is almost an elegiac film, as it holds the mirror up to youthful ardour and the wisdom of experience. I've not come across another film that so precisely measures the distance from our youth to our middle years, when regrets creep in and resentments stack up. What is most beautifully rendered here is the two distinct approaches to memory. What is important and felt to the younger Margaux is shown to be so inconsequential as to have been forgotten by the older one. It is a heartbreaking way to depict the losses that time exacts on us, and all the more powerful for its understatement.