Leave One Day (Partir un Jour) | 2025 Cannes Film Festival Review

Chef’s Kiss: Bonnin Uses Familiar Recipe in Pleasant Debut

For her directorial debut, Partir un Jour (Leave One Day), based on her own 2021 Cesar Award Winning short film, Amélie Bonnin whips up a crowd pleasing confection which could have used a little less sugar and a little more tart. In the annals of French cinema, sporadic musical numbers utilized to enhance the emotional interiority of characters navigating life’s foibles happens to be one of the country’s specialities, a legacy including Jacques Demy and Christophe Honore, both of whom come to mind in Bonnin’s scruffy, likable addition to the subgenre. Arguably, these gentle outbursts circumnavigate sentimental banalities, but a hit-or-miss quality suggests the strong sense of characterizations might have benefitted from less generic musical asides (especially from a supporting cast not quite adept at singing). The exception would be French singer-songwriter Juliette Armanet, who delivers a disarming, lived-in performance as a woman forced to resolve unfinished business with her past.

Cecile Beguin (Armanet) is a renowned chef on the verge of opening her first restaurant alongside her partner, Sofiane (Tewfik Jallab). With only two weeks to go, she’s yet to solidify a signature dish to obtain the social media attention she desires. Her life’s dream is to run a three star Michelin rated restaurant, and she has earned a pedigree which suggests her goal is in sight, seeing as she took home the top prize on reality television show Top Chef. On the same day she learns she’s pregnant (as Sofiane is her partner in more ways than one), her mother Fanfan (Dominique Blanc) calls to inform Cecile of her father Gerard’s (Francois Rollin) third heart attack. Convinced to visit her parents despite the impending opening, Cecile heads home to her parents’ truck stop diner ‘The Pit Stop’ to learn Gerard has checked himself out of the hospital and has no desire to retire, much to the chagrin of Fanfan. Cecile is confronted with her father’s hurt feelings, who believes his daughter is ashamed of her background, carrying around a notebook filled with demeaning micro aggressions she uttered on television regarding the kind of food she grew up with and the ignorance of the community she was born into (which includes considerable criticism of macedoine, a loose French culinary term for salads comprised of fruits or vegetables, solidifying a trending connotation for ‘lower class,’ as equally evidenced by a dish highlighted in Julia Kowalski’s Her Will Be Done, 2025).

Adding to this unpleasantry is her reunion with Raphael (Bastien Bouillon), an unrequited crush from her high school days who clearly still holds a torch for Cecile. While her father guesses she’s with child, her impending appointment to abort the pregnancy further strains their rapport, which allows for a potential dalliance with Raphael to seem all the more appealing. Only, Raphael is now married to a kind but plain classmate of theirs with a child of his own. And Sofiane shows up unannounced to check in on the infamously anxious Cecile, complicating matters considerably when he accidentally discovers her pregnancy.

At its core, Leave One Day is a solid, fulfilling melodrama that might be hitting all the familiar notes, but does so with considerable gusto thanks foremost to a lovely turn from Armanet, who has a breezy, down-to-earth ambience akin to Camille Cottin. A strong supporting cast, including French cinema stalwart Dominique Blanc and an effectively mournful Bastien Bouillon, are charmingly irreverent, with the gruff Francois Rollin representing the dramatic foil with whom Cecile needs actual reconciliation. Unfortunately, outside of Armanet, none of them can sing, so nearly all of their instigated musical numbers feel quite jarring, even with lyrical content set to famous tunes from the likes of Celine Dion or The Four Seasons—-and many more! Tewfik Jallab is also a scene stealer as Cecile’s painstaking partner/support system/catch all, and even the affable family doggo named Bocuse (named for chef Paul Bocuse, aka ‘the pope of gastronomy’) earns sweetheart points.

For those unaccustomed to peculiar but emotional French language musicals, Leave One Day might lodge in the subconscious similar to something like Yann Samuell’s 2003 hit Love Me If You Dare. However, while not nearly approaching the heights of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) or Les Chansons d’Amour (2007), Bonnin’s recipe should certainly appeal to those prone to romantically inclined films allowing their female lead to retain her agency.

Reviewed on May 13th at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival (78th edition) – Opening Film / Out of Competition. 94 Mins.

★★½/☆☆☆☆☆