‘Another Day’ Cannes Review: Adèle Exarchopoulos Carries a Conventional but Emotionally Honest Alcoholism Drama

Garance drinks, but she’s not particularly worried about it. Her life as an actress with erratic work doesn’t seem to be suffering — or so she believes — and alcohol helps dull whatever else is bothering her, while also fueling nearly every night out with her circle of friends. But she’s not just a social drinker. Garance opens a bottle of wine — her drink of choice — and knows when she starts but never when she stops. Doctors will later tell her she’s getting through about two liters a day. This will not strike her as unusual.

Garance (another strong performance from Adèle Exarchopoulos) doesn’t pay much attention to what people tell her. Despite her addiction, she shows up on time, rarely forgets her lines, and — beyond always looking a little wrecked — meets her commitments. She’s also left her somewhat useless boyfriend and started a romance with a set designer named Pauline (Sara Giraudeau), who claims to love her exactly as she is, with no pressure to change or quit drinking. Not even during the pandemic, when Pauline found herself making repeated runs to buy her box wine by the liter.

But things reach a breaking point professionally, and Garance is faced with an ultimatum she didn’t see coming. Her colleagues in the children’s theater company where she works — more out of concern than complaint — tell her: if she keeps drinking like this, she can’t keep working with them. Her doctors aren’t exactly giving her a clean bill of health either, unless she cuts out alcohol entirely. Garance, though, is not easily moved, and the film keeps circling not just the question of whether she can do it, but whether she actually wants to.

Another Day (Garance) follows a fairly conventional addiction drama structure — a woman trying to keep up with the demands of work, family (she has a sister with cancer and a young niece), and above all, a life that feels livable and worth living to her. The catch is that she’s needed alcohol to do any of that since she was eighteen. Drinking isn’t just a habit; it’s the scaffolding her life is built on, and dismantling it means far more than a simple decision. A committed denier, she always has a ready excuse for whatever trouble the alcohol causes.

Exarchopoulos is the film’s clearest asset. She’s working within a long tradition of female alcoholic characters on screen — Gena Rowlands remains the gold standard — but what sets Garance apart is that she almost never completely loses it. She doesn’t blow up, doesn’t end up in genuinely dangerous situations. She misplaces things, wakes up unsure how she got to bed, and carries the permanent look of someone who hasn’t slept properly in years — but she remains functional. And that functionality may be exactly what keeps her from taking her problem seriously.

Directed and edited by Jeanne Herry in the familiar register of contemporary French urban drama, Another Day doesn’t add anything particularly distinctive to the addiction genre. But its intensity, the weight of its subject matter, and certain specific moments — the doctor who treats her deserves her own series — give it a ring of truth. Add an actress with genuine charisma and talent, and there are moments where the film manages to rise above its own limitations.