My Favorite Season

Berthe, an elderly widow, is forced to leave her farm due to declining health and moves in with her daughter Émilie and son-in-law Bruno in Blagnac. She immediately feels out of place in the bourgeois household and resists the change. The move marks the start of mounting family friction that threads through the rest of the story.

Late at night, Berthe sits by the swimming pool and talks to herself, expressing dissatisfaction with the house and the life it represents. She rejects the pretensions of Émilie's world and criticizes the care she receives. The scene establishes her isolation and unhappiness.

Émilie visits her brother Antoine, who hasn't spoken to them for three years since their father's funeral. She explains Berthe's deteriorating health and invites Antoine to join them for Christmas dinner. He agrees to come but remains wary of rekindling old tensions.

On Christmas Eve, Antoine arrives as Émilie, Bruno and Anne leave for midnight mass. He wanders the house and discovers Lucien making out with Khadija, their Moroccan secretary invited for the holiday. He promises not to tell.

Berthe greets Antoine with a bitter mood, complaining about living with Émilie and showing little affection for Bruno or the grandchildren. She makes clear she does not feel supported or valued by the family. Her bitterness foreshadows the family’s ongoing tensions.

After the youngsters retreat to Lucien's room, a heated confrontation erupts between Bruno and Antoine in the dining room. Antoine leaves with a bloody nose, and Berthe departs with him. The quarrel exposes the growing rift in the family.

Émilie confesses to Bruno that she despises what the family has become, while Anne is distraught and seeks comfort from Khadija. The holiday gathering ends on a note of pain and broken trust.

Berthe returns to live alone at her farm, but soon suffers a stroke. The medical crisis accelerates the family’s crisis and forces new arrangements for her care.

Following the stroke, the siblings decide to move Berthe into a nursing home. En route, they reminisce about old times, and Berthe critiques how their lives have become focused on career. Antoine fulfills a childhood dream by skinny-dipping in a river during a stop.

Émilie spends a night at Antoine's apartment under pressure from her brother, and he gives her a sleep-inducing drug. He then joins Khadija and Anne at the bar where Lucien works, while Anne has given up law to work in a music shop. The night spotlights the ongoing cracks in the family dynamics.

When they visit Berthe at the retirement home, her health has greatly deteriorated. She laments that she would have liked a third child to care for her. An exam at the hospital confirms she is in final decline, and the family arranges her removal from the nursing home to hospital care.

Émilie moves back to Blagnac after Berthe's worsening condition; Antoine breaks into the house to talk to her, and they have a heated argument. Feeling guilty, Antoine makes a halfhearted suicide attempt by jumping from the balcony of his apartment and breaking a leg.

Berthe dies alone at the hospital. After the funeral, the family gathers at the Blagnac house and shares breakfast outdoors, reflecting on their memories together. Anne asks which season is their favorite, and Émilie recites a childhood poem she once sang, evoking a sense of past happiness.