Arthur is invited to a New Year's Eve party to celebrate the year 2000. His girlfriend Lucie would like a baby from him but he refuses. Through the ceiling of the toilets, he discovers a passage leading to this futurist Paris. There, he meets an old man Ako who affirms he is his son and that he wants to exist. Otherwise he will vanish into the air. Arthur is still hesitant because his life is an unfulfilled one: a has a little lucrative job, is uncertain about his future and things are getting out of hand when Ako discovers the passage and interferes in the party.
Acting
Belmondo at 66, radiating desperate paternal need
Production
Y2K futurism that aged into charming retro-nostalgia
Direction
Klapisch's cramped apartment chaos meets cosmic stakes
Director
Cédric Klapisch
Romain Duris
Arthur
Jean-Paul Belmondo
Ako
Géraldine Pailhas
Lucie
Julie Depardieu
Nathalie
Emmanuelle Devos
Juliette
Dominique Frot
Artémise
Léa Drucker
Clotilde
Olivier Gourmet
Jean-Claude
Elisa Servier
la mère réveillon
Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Chanteur Bouge
Zinedine Soualem
Kader
Jocelyn Quivrin
Le Martien
Cédric Klapisch
L'épicier
Jean-Pierre Bacri
Le père réveillon
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Belmondo came out of semi-retirement for this role, reportedly because he found the father-son dynamic genuinely moving.
The film captures a specific French millennial anxiety—1999 Parisians weren't worried about computers crashing, but about whether their lives had meant anything.
FR
