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‘Suspended Time’ Review: Olivier Assayas’ Sunny Indulgence Returns Us to the Early Days of Lockdown
In 'Suspended Time,' Olivier Assayas recounts his pandemic experience through a gauze of fiction, but you can't accuse him of juicing up the drama.
Now, Assayas’ latest features a clear Hansen-Løve proxy: Flavia (Maud Wyler), now split from the helmer’s alter ego Paul (Vincent Macaigne), sternly smokes and dispenses passive-aggressive criticism over Zoom as they negotiate the upbringing of their daughter Britt (Magdalena Lafont) in a time of moderate crisis. Paul and Etienne’s respective girlfriends, Morgane (Nina D’Urso) and Carole (Nora Hamzawi), complete a ragtag domestic quartet, and the film’s scant dramatic conflict hinges on the minor irritations that bristle between them — familiar to anyone who felt a little too close to their nearest and dearest in those strange, out-of-time months. Running semi-jokes about mask-wearing anxiety and hygiene theater feel entirely played out by 2024, and well beneath Assayas’ abilities as a writer, while Paul’s sporadic fretting about career stasis and creative blockage is countered by others reminding him of his rampant privilege.
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