Time To Leave DVD, 2005

The extraordinarily prolific director François Ozon notches up another trenchant character study, one of his best, although unusually here the focus is on a man rather than a woman. Romain (Melvil Poupaud - excellent), a young, gay photographer, learns he has less than a year to live. He feels unable to tell those closest to him, and attempts to resolve the unfinished problems in his life, possibly finding redemption for a life devoted to selfish hedonism.
Romain is hardly a sympathetic character - he is difficult, cruel, selfish and, when he finally confides his illness to his grandmother (Jeanne Moreau), he touchingly tells her it is because she will die soon too and will therefore understand. Yet this latter scene is the best in the film - Moreau gives the cameo of the year as the still-beguiling elderly woman in a sensitive performance laced with warmth and dry wit. The trajectory of the plot may sound familiar, but the director's skill and rejection of cliché gradually build up to a highly moving crescendo, set - where else for an Ozon film? - on the beach.

Alex Davidson on 14th September 2006
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