Synopsis
On election night in 1981, celebrations spill out onto the street and there is an air of hope and change throughout Paris. But for Elisabeth, her marriage is coming to an end and she will now have to support herself and her two teenage children. She finds work at a late-night radio show and encounters a troubled teenager named Talulah whom she invites into her home.
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Cast
- Charlotte GainsbourgElisabeth
- Quito Rayon RichterMatthias
- Noée AbitaTalulah
- Megan NorthamJudith
- Thibault VinçonHugo
- Emmanuelle BéartVanda Dorval
- Laurent PoitrenauxManuel Agostini
- Didier SandreJean
- Lilith GrasmugLeïla
- Calixte Broisin-DoutazCarlos
Recommendations
- 91
The Playlist
Gainsbourg is riveting in her portrayal of the intricacy of this pattern, her hands grasping for the tangibility of doorframes when words seem far too futile, her back arching and contracting to respond to ecstasy and sorrow. - 83
IndieWire
The film’s greatest achievement is the measured and elegant gaze on a woman in the prime of life, often referred to as middle age, whose desires (both sexual and professional) are neither diminished nor pathologized. - 80
The Hollywood Reporter
The film spans several years in her life and that of her family, covering moments both important and relatively inconsequential. It’s a credit to Hers’ contemplative, never intrusive observational style that by the end of the two-hour running time we know them intimately. - 70
Screen Daily
In its unassuming, intuitive way, the film is rather beguiling, if a little gauzy and elusive at times. - 70
Variety
An airy, low-key drama that doesn’t suffer for its lack of narrative tension, The Passengers of the Night further proves the old adage about the journey mattering more the destination. - 67
Original-Cin
The argument, these days, is that too many films are about sensation. Big action movies, superhero movies, movies that deliver a lot of adrenaline and thrills but really don’t ask much of the viewer. With his latest film The Passengers of the Night, French director Mikhaël Hers goes in the opposite direction, making a movie that resists manipulation and drama. - 60
The Guardian
This is a film that doesn’t set out to push your emotional buttons all that hard, or even at all. But it covers a surprising amount of narrative ground and there is always something engaging and tender to it.
