''Daddy Nostalgie'', released as These Foolish Things in the UK and ''Daddy Nostalgia'' in the USA, is a 1990 French

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by

Bertrand Tavernier Bertrand Tavernier (; 25 April 1941 – 25 March 2021) was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer. Life and career Tavernier was born in Lyon, France, the son of Geneviève (née Dumond) and René Tavernier, a publicist and writer, ...

. It was entered into the 1990 Cannes Film Festival and is

Dirk Bogarde Sir Dirk Bogarde (born Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde; 28 March 1921 – 8 May 1999) was an English actor, novelist and screenwriter. Initially a matinée idol in films such as ''Doctor in the House (film), Doctor in the Hous ...

's last film. Odette Laure was nominated for the César Award for Best Supporting Actress. The film tells the story of a young woman who goes to help her parents during her father's last illness and how in that time father and daughter establish a tentative bond that had eluded them all their lives. The film is dedicated to

Michael Powell Michael Latham Powell (30 September 1905 – 19 February 1990) was an English filmmaker, celebrated for his partnership with Emeric Pressburger. Through their production company Powell and Pressburger, The Archers, they together wrote, produced ...

, who died shortly before its release.

Plot

Caroline, a freelance scriptwriter in Paris, is called to the hospital where her father Tony, a retired businessman, has undergone surgery. She stays with her mother Miche in their home on the south coast and helps her when he comes back to convalesce. In moments of conversation or reverie, the three examine their relationships with each other. Miche is a woman of limited and conventional mind, whose only outside interests are bridge and her Catholic church. Her assets were beauty, now gone, and fidelity. Tony has no outside interests, being a shallow and selfish man, but his asset is charm, which has seen him through his life and now serves to conceal both his constant physical pain and his fear of imminent death. Caroline wants to love them but throughout her life has mostly been neglected by them, particularly since she split up with the father of her child. In Tony's last weeks, Caroline begins to learn a lot about the father she hardly ever saw and to form a bond with him, strengthened by secret outings to bars for the alcohol he is forbidden. She has to go back to Paris to retrieve her young son and while there learns of Tony's death. The trains are on strike and every flight is full, so she walks the streets of the city alone with her grief.

Cast

as Daddy *

Jane Birkin Jane Mallory Birkin ( ; 14 December 1946 – 16 July 2023) was a British and French actress, singer, and designer. She had a prolific career as an actress, mostly in French cinema. A native of London, Birkin began her career as an actress, ...

as Caroline * Odette Laure as Miche * Charlotte Kady as Barbara, the nurse *

as Narrator (uncredited)

References

External links

* * * {{Bertrand Tavernier 1990 films 1990 drama films French drama films 1990s French-language films English-language French films Films directed by Bertrand Tavernier 1990s French films 1990 multilingual films French multilingual films