Film

French Exit

Name: French Exit
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Released: 2021
Cast: Michelle Pfeiffer, Lucas Hedges, Tracy Letts, Valerie Mahaffey, Susan Coyne

Social drama

A wealthy Manhattan widow relocates to Paris with her aimless son and a cat that might contain her dead husband's spirit. It's a strange, melancholic comedy about decay, devotion, and the peculiar intimacy of people with nowhere else to go. Deliberately paced, absurdist without being cruel, best for viewers who enjoy oddness with feeling.

TMDb rating

2.8

If you liked this

The Royal Tenenbaums2001

Wes Anderson's portrait of a dysfunctional family reunited by circumstance rather than affection. Like French Exit, it finds profound sadness in the gap between who people were and who they've become, wrapped in fastidious visual detail and dark humour.

But The self-conscious aesthetics can feel chilly. If you find Anderson's style already mannered, this will only amplify your resistance.

Lost River2015

Ryan Gosling's directorial debut shares French Exit's surreal melancholy and provincial decay. A mother and son navigate a dying town with dreamlike logic. Strange, patient, genuinely haunting rather than just quirky.

But It's cryptic to the point of obscurity. Long stretches go by without conventional plot momentum, which will feel glacial if you're not on its wavelength.

Moonlight2016

Three chapters tracing a man's relationship with his own identity and the people who shaped him. It shares French Exit's focus on how we become who we are, and the weight of that becoming. Quietly devastating.

But The pacing is meditative rather than propulsive. It asks patience from you, and offers no comfort in exchange—just clarity.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from French Exit

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Souvenir2019

Both films are portraits of people bound to each other by circumstance rather than clarity, living in the space between incomprehension and devotion.

Joanna Hogg's semi-autobiographical film about a young art student and her relationship with an older man. Like French Exit, it's fascinated by how we live with people we don't fully understand, and how intimacy breeds a kind of blindness. Formally inventive, emotionally precise.

But It's ambiguous about the nature of the relationship at its centre, and refuses to judge. Some viewers will find that refusal frustrating or even irresponsible.

The Farewell2019

Lulu Wang's film captures the specific gravity of family obligation and the comedy buried in grief. Like French Exit, it finds humour not as a deflection but as part of the texture of people learning to live with loss.

But The shifts between tones can feel abrupt if you're expecting a stable genre. It's deliberately uncertain about whether to make you laugh or break your heart.

Paterson2016

Jim Jarmusch's portrait of a bus driver-poet living a small, particular life. It shares French Exit's refusal to dramatize the everyday, its faith that quiet observation is enough, its kindness toward failure.

But Nothing much happens. If you need plot events or character arcs that resolve, this will feel like an hour and a half of stalling.

First Reformed2018

Paul Schrader's portrait of a dying man wrestling with faith, duty, and the question of whether any of it matters. It has French Exit's dark comedy and its willingness to sit with someone at the end of something.

But It's spiritually anxious and sometimes hard to watch. The bleakness is not relenting, and there's no rescue at the end.

Inherent Vice2014

Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation captures a similar tonal register: funny and melancholic, digressive, interested in character over plot, populated by people adrift. It's a mystery that doesn't care about solving itself.

But The narrative is deliberately evasive. If you're watching for clarity, you'll only get frustration and a hangover.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer2017

Yorgos Lanthimos directs with the same commitment to strangeness French Exit has. A slow-burn horror about debt, obligation, and family that treats the surreal as inevitable rather than shocking.

But The pacing is suffocating by design. The dread never lifts, and the film offers no catharsis, only resignation.

A Ghost Story2017

Both films treat the dead as present rather than absent, and frame that presence as neither horrifying nor comforting—just a fact of living.

David Lowery's meditation on grief, time, and haunting. A man returns as a ghost to watch his wife move through their empty house. It shares French Exit's preoccupation with the dead refusing to leave and the living learning to live around them.

But It's wordless for long stretches and works entirely through mood and patience. The concept is high-concept, but the execution is deliberately artisanal and slow.