If the general shapelessness of Emanuelle Bercot’s On My Way is fairly easy to accommodate, it’s because the admittedly stale material rests squarely on the shoulders of French icon Catherine Deneuve. At 70, she’s a delight here as a beleaguered former beauty queen, a tailor-made role which she inhabits with ease and a faded effervescence that is affecting in the way it permeates every frame of this movie. Like Sebastián Lelio’s not dissimilar, but superior Gloria, On My Way occupies the character space of middle aged women wrestling with the pitiless spectre of mortality, but re-awakening to discover purpose and independence whilst attempting to hang together strained family ties.
Bercot and co-writer Jérôme Tonnerre can be unsubtle about ageist indignities, lobbing cruel insults like “worn-out old whore” at Deneuve’s Bettie, but find poignant beats in the random encounters in the provincial towns the character passes through on the run from a failing bistro business and crumbled relationship. There’s a gentle transient spell in this first half, its meandering pace earned by a sense of existential introspection, but things unfortunately travel down a more generic, broadly appealing route, adding an odd-couple foil to the mix with Charly (Nemo Schiffman), her estranged daughter’s bratty 11-year-old son whom she’s forced to babysit.
On My Way is never less than watchable, but bar Deneuve’s presence, the film rarely coalesces dramatically, a shame, considering how much the third act is investing in stitching up emotional wounds and rekindling old flames
