4/5 stars

Despite being set in Paris, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden eschews the city’s touristic landmarks. Rather, he focuses on hospitals, suburban trams and skyscrapers – a landscape as different as one would expect from a non-French director making a film in the French capital for the first time.

But the three-hour-plus film offers other pleasant surprises as well. Pivoting further from the Rohmer-esque romantic dramas of his early career, Hamaguchi doubles down on the fiery political conscience previously revealed in his 2023 eco-drama Evil Does Not Exist.

Inspired by a collection of correspondence between philosopher Makiko Miyano and anthropologist Maho Isono about human mortality, All of a Sudden revolves around the budding friendship between French nursing-home manager Marie-Lou (Virginie Efira) and Japanese theatre director Mari (Tao Okamoto).

Marie-Lou runs the Garden of Freedom, where she advocates a new way of attending to her elderly charges. Dubbed “Humanitude”, the approach demands carers be more delicate with the residents, which translates to a more time-consuming process that senior staff members dismiss offhand as impractical and unethical.

Frustrated by the pushback, Marie-Lou heads off to watch a play directed by Mari, having met the director in a chance encounter in a park earlier in the day.