Leaving Everything 1.7 - From Night to Dawn

Leaving Everything - From Night to Dawn

Director : Marielle Heller

Writer : Ann Morrow

Based on the novel by Anais Barbeau-Lavalette

Cast: Rebecca Hall, Robin Tunney, Tobey Maguire, Colm Feore, Lance Henriksen, Adam Arkin, Alan Ford and Zoe Kravitz

Plot: Suzanne (Rebecca Hall) dressed professionally with a skirt and a jacket enters an office with her boyfriend by her side, the much older Lenny (Adam Arkin) CEO of a small enterprise located in New York. She sits at the front desk and starts to write a letter. She works as a receptionist there and she seems… surprisingly happy. She has been working there for a couple of years now and, as opposed to everything else in her life, she decided not to leave. Lenny makes her happy, happier than Marcel ever made her. She writes in her free time and during her lunch break, in French, of course, so Lenny can’t read it and embarrass her by sharing it with his rich friends. The night has come and they go to a restaurant where they eat fancy, but not too fancy, Suzanne doesn’t want the rich lifestyle, she likes things to be simple. Lenny is too crazy about her and complies. Their evening goes well and they have sex at home.

The situation isn’t as good for Suzanne’s ex-lover and father of her two children Marcel (Tobey Maguire). He looks through a pile of papers in his small studio he shares with his mentor, Paul-Emile Borduas (Colm Feore). Marcel asks Borduas if he will ever find her again and Borduas hates to be pessimistic, but he doesn’t think he’s ever going to see her again. She left without a trace and it was clearly her goal never to be found again. Marcel tells Borduas that enough time has passed for him to get a divorce in Quebec, so he’s leaving by train tomorrow to divorce her and finally put that chapter of his life to bed. Borduas asks Marcel if he’s ready to put it to bed and he’s not entirely sure. 

In a more modern time, Anna (Robin Tunney) brought her uncle, Francis (Lance Henriksen) to meet his father Marcel (Alan Ford) after all these years. She’s not sure about what the outcome will be, but she was determined for them to meet again. Marcel just looks at him awkwardly and Francis just stands there, not understanding the situation fully, due to his lack of knowledge of social cues. Anna breaks the silence and she tells Francis that this is his father, he doesn’t remember him and it’s normal, because he abandoned him when he was still a baby. Marcel interrupts and he says he didn’t abandon his children, she did, Suzanne did. He said he loved his children with all his heart and he did not abandon them. Anna corrects him and she says that a man who loves his children doesn’t leave them on his sister’s porch never to talk to them again. Marcel says he talked to Anna’s mother and Anna quickly jumps the gun and she says that if he’s talking about the documentary, she wouldn’t consider it talking, he didn’t answer her questions, because he’s ashamed of what he did. Francis finally talks and he says one simple word: dad?

Suzanne gets to work early the next morning and she writes a poem, sitting at her desk. She doesn’t notice that Borduas entered and his watching her. She struggles to find a line and he utters: De la nuit jusqu’à l’aube (From Night to Dawn), which surprises her. She starts to panic, asking him how he found her, if Marcel knows and what he’s going to do. Borduas says he isn’t here to get her, he just wanted to talk to her. She was tough to find, but he recognized her at a public poetry reading. She wrote about freedom and it was in French, and that’s where it caught his attention. He says it is the last time he sees her. She clearly wants them out of her life, although he doesn’t understand why, but that’s normal, she’s an artist at heart. She left everything, a clean slate, and he senses she’s about to do it again, because between them, she’s not going to be a receptionist forever and, pointing at a picture of Lenny hung on the wall, she can do better than that. She completely broke Marcel, and as he said she had her reasons and he doesn’t want to know why she left. She said, in her poem, that she struggled for years to keep up, to stay on her course, to settle down like everyone, but she dreamed of freedom so long and the desire was so strong, that she turned her life upside down to chase that dream and right now, he’s disappointed in what he sees. He’s going to leave now, but she needs to promise that she’s not going to waste her life here, at this desk. She left bigger, more important things before and she can surely do it again. He gives her a folded piece of paper and he leaves, kissing her goodbye for the last time. Suzanne thinks about what he just said to her. She agrees with him and writes a heartfelt letter to Lenny, telling him that she’s leaving him. She needs to chase her dream, freedom. A dream so hard to achieve that she’s starting a third chapter in her life for it. She leaves tonight, she doesn’t know where she’s going and if shouldn’t bother to try to find her again, he won’t. She leaves the office and leaves, without a suitcase, and buys a bus ticket heading south. She doesn’t know where she’ll stop, she’ll stop when she will feel like it’s time. She gets on the bus and meets with her seat buddy, a charming young woman named Daisy (Zoe Kravitz). Daisy asks Suzanne where she,s going and Suzanne laughs it off, saying she has no idea. She asks Daisy where she’s going and Daisy says she’s not sure she can trust her with the answer, which intrigues Suzanne. Suzanne looks by the window and falls asleep as the bus starts.

Back in modern days, Francis asks his father why he never saw him and Marcel, overtaken by the emotion, can’t answer his son right away. He begins to lose his balance and falls on the ground slowly. Francis watches on, awkwardly, while Anna quickly grabs a chair. She bends down to pick him up and she sees tears in his eyes. She broke him.