‘One Minute to Midnight’ Review: Melvil Poupaud Reckons with His Past in a Too-Talky Parisian Drama

Venice: Poupaud plays a former culture writer on an apology tour in a Nicolas Pariser film that could've been an article. Or a play.

In Nicolas Pariser’s “One Minute to Midnight,” Melvil Poupaud plays Léo, a 49-year-old former culture writer and current college TA who lives in Nancy after being priced out of Paris years before. He stops in Paris on his way to Italy to see a lawyer after the death of his Italian biological father, whom he never met. When that appointment is postponed by a week, he decides to stay in Paris to interrogate his past.

The inciting incident of this existential query is a conversation with his daughter Emma (Clara Pacini), a 19-year-old activist involved in the current clashes between police and rioters in the suburbs of Paris. After Léo tells his daughter — who was raised by her mother — that his father claimed Léo’s mother was his ultimate love, despite their having spent only a brief time together, she is disgusted by this romanticism and what she views as sexism. “Same old story!” she tells her father. “Men take women’s bodies to produce a story, pure fiction, that excludes the actual woman from life.”

Léo then meets with some of his old compatriots who ran a culture magazine started at the turn of the century. Alexandre is someone Léo hated then and can’t stand now, but he connects with Alexandre’s wife, Eléonore (Léonie Simaga), in a relationship born of mutual antipathy toward her husband and a growing attraction and curiosity between them. They walk the streets of Paris and talk about the magazine’s salad days, as Eléonore is especially curious about the women around them. These women barely contributed to the journal, yet were mostly present as attractive interns, along with one unforgettable muse named Tina. When Eléonore hears that Léo had an affair with an intern, she suggests he contact her about this possible transgression.

The intern, Armelle (Anaïs Demoustier), has become a Socialist politician, and she is relieved to take a break from the current crisis to see an old friend. When she finds out that another man involved with the magazine has been accused of rape, she is not surprised. Another intern warned her about him. “Like rain: you protect yourself. That’s how it was,” she says.

When he brings up their affair, wondering if he was abusing his power over her without being fully aware of it, she shrugs. “At the time it seemed normal. Today it probably isn’t,” she tells him. “I’m not angry with you. It doesn’t mean what happened to us was right or normal.”

The film follows a theme of so many films in competition at the Venice International Film Festival this year. In “Wild Horse Nine,” “Ink,” “The Basics of Philosophy,” perhaps even Casey Affleck’s “Company,” there is a sense of passive guilt at the state of the world. In Pariser’s film, there is at least some personal accountability, which is a relief and a change. But despite compelling performers and a pleasant score, the problem is that this could have been an article, or perhaps a play. Most of the film is simply two people talking, whether walking or sitting still.

The film comes alive in two sections. The first is when Léo tracks down his most successful former colleague, François (a terrific Micha Lescot), who is currently producing a fictional television show about their magazine days, now considered vintage and cool. As Léo wanders the set, he sees that the person playing him is also playing a loser, as described by one cast member, or at least someone hesitant to commit. It is a joy to see in films like this, or Mia Hansen-Løve’s Paris-set “Eden” (2014), a focus on the people who didn’t succeed. They didn’t fail but never became remarkable, like most people.

Other scenes that transcend the dialogue come when we finally meet the muse, Tina, who “did not write but went to screenings” and inspired every man on staff. As soon as Léo describes her as “abnormally beautiful,” it is clear she will be played by Golshifteh Farahani, one of the names in the credits and one of the most beautiful women in the world. Tina was hiding in plain sight, working on the television show and exhausted from her late-night production job when Léo finds her. She instantly knows what he wants, and declines. “I sensed your need for existential conversation. Stop looking at me with puppy eyes,” she says.

And though all the actors are good, Farahani most transcends the flat plane of the screen. She moves! She walks ahead of Léo and behind him, lies flat, and refuses to be contained by Léo and his moping. She tells him she is already worn out from her brother staying with her recently, talking about their childhood and his divorces. “All that cheesy romanticism,” she describes it. “I’ve been there, and I’ve had it with masculine self-pity. Why are you all so glum lately? Basta! Get over yourselves.”

And one wishes Farahani could say that to so many men making films this year. Unfortunately, those few, vital moments with her do not break the shell of this sensitive man with his puppy eyes. His journey is one of implosion. There is crisis all around him. At one point, France threatens to become a temporary dictatorship to deal with the political unrest at the edges of the screen. In the very last shot, Pariser seems to leave this uncertain world in the hands of young Emma and her generation. Like the apology tour shown in the film, the ending is a sensitive cop-out.

Grade: B-

“One Minute to Midnight” premiered at the 2026 Venice Film Festival before playing TIFF. The film is currently seeking U.S. distribution.