{"id":133197,"date":"2026-02-14T01:49:49","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T01:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/133197\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T01:49:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T01:49:49","slug":"juliette-binoche-on-queen-at-sea-aging-and-alzheimers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/133197\/","title":{"rendered":"Juliette Binoche on ‘Queen at Sea,” Aging and Alzheimer\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJuliette Binoche<\/a> has spent four decades embodying the restless intelligence of French and European cinema, moving effortlessly between auteurs and emotional registers. <\/p>\n

\n\tFrom the feral, ecstatic intensity of the homeless, fiercely romantic painter Mich\u00e8le in Leos Carax\u2019 The Lovers on the Bridge (1991), to the raw, grief-stricken interiority of the widowed Julie in Krzysztof Kie\u015blowski\u2019s Three Colors: Blue (1993); from the mysteriously mercurial Elle in Abbas Kiarostami\u2019s Certified Copy<\/a>, to the deeply sensual but cautiously restrained 19th-century cook Eug\u00e9nie in Anh Hung Tran\u2019s The Taste of Things <\/a>(2023), Binoche as constantly redefined screen femininity on her own terms.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf her turns in Hollywood productions have been more slight, more souffl\u00e9 than cassoulet, they remain delectable. She is effortless charm as the confiseur tempting self-denying puritans in Chocolat (2000), or as the sweet and saintly nurse comforting the war-scarred in The English Patient (1996) \u2014 the role that won Binoche the Oscar.<\/p>\n

\n\tQueen at Sea is something quite different. Binoche plays a quite ordinary woman caught in the quite familiar squeeze of midlife. She is caught between parenthood \u2014 as a newly-single mum raising a teenage daughter [Bridgerton<\/a>\u2018s<\/a> Florence Hunt] just discovering her sexuality \u2014 and caring for a mother [Anna Calder-Marshall] ravaged by Alzheimer\u2019s, whose husband, her stepfather [Tom Courtney] may be abusing her.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film finds the Parisian icon navigating council houses, care homes and the unglamorous logistics of social services in contemporary London. It\u2019s as if Binoche wandered onto a Ken Loach set by mistake.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Queen at Sea quickly reveals itself to be stranger and more unsettling than its surface suggests. Director Lance Hammer, returning with his second feature since his 2008 Sundance breakout Ballast, uses the familiar scaffolding of kitchen-sink realism to probe far murkier terrain: The moral fog surrounding illness, aging and family obligation.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking to The Hollywood Reporter ahead of Queen at Sea\u2018s competition premiere in Berlin<\/a>, Binoche discussed aging, bonding with her screen mother over Wuthering Heights<\/a>, and the importance of European cinema in a world on fire.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow did you get involved in this film and what drew you to this story?<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen I spoke with Lance, he was very open about sharing his story and evolving the story together. And the story evolved as we talked and the script evolved. He really wanted to have a collective experience and with his actors.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat I said to Lance was that the story interests me because I remember periods of in my life where I was in between raising the young generation, who are coming out of the house to live their lives, and the parents going downwards, with less mobility, less independence. There\u2019s this middle-aged time as as a human being, where you\u2019re in the middle of these two totally different sides and you don\u2019t know how to deal with it. That\u2019s what happened to me. Lance was interested in that.<\/p>\n

\n\tI think it\u2019s a quite modern story. With Alzheimer\u2019s, a lot of people have this illness. It\u2019s quite surprising how much this illness has become part of becoming old now.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t(L to R): Tom Courtney and Juliette Binoche<\/a> in \u2018Queen at Sea\u2019 <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t@Seafaring<\/p>\n

\n\tHow did Lance\u2019s original idea and original script evolve as you developed it together?<\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t remember much from the first draft of the script except that it touched something in me. I shared that with Lance, through emails, and he wanted me to share personal stories and be inspired by them.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat I loved about the story is when you are in this position, and feel responsible for your parent, you make decisions that, in the end, can be the worst decisions. [My character] makes a choice, which she thinks is for the good of her mother. She is pointing out something that doesn\u2019t work and trying to get help. But that suddenly puts her and her mother into this whole system, this social care system, and she loses control. This system, that supposed to take care of people and protect them, all of a sudden becomes a nightmare.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat I liked was that the film pushes questions but doesn\u2019t have answers. It makes you wonder: Where is the solution to this illness within this system? Particularly for people who are a little independent but not totally independent. There\u2019s this in-between time that is so hard, because that\u2019s the time where you can have accidents where things can go out of control.<\/p>\n

\n\tOur perspective of the characters changes dramatically throughout the film, particularly Tom Courtney, playing your character\u2019s stepfather. In the first 10-15 minutes, he feels like the villain, taking advantage of your mother\u2019s illness. By the end, we\u2019re completely on his side.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s also the movement of my character. At the end, I love him. But that\u2019s the transformation my character goes through as well. That\u2019s what I liked about Lance \u2013 he\u2019s able to show the complexity of a situation and of characters. Like how my character deals with her own guilt towards how she treats her mother. Even at the end, when you think it\u2019s going to be ok, that things are stabilized, he turns it again into a whole different story.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJuliette Binoche and Tom Courtney in \u2018Queen at Sea\u2019 <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t@Seafaring<\/p>\n

\n\tYour character also changes quite dramatically throughout the film.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the beginning, she wants to be in control. She thinks she knows what is good and bad and where to draw the line. Then, bit by bit, she is humbled by what happens. The situation wobbles. She\u2019s also worried about her daughter, who is getting romantically involved and talking about having sex. And my character is worried she\u2019ll get pregnant.<\/p>\n

\n\tMy character thinks she is in control and bit by bit, she understands she\u2019s not. She realizes the decisions she\u2019s made for her mother were not the right ones and, in the end, she feels humbled and more fragile.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou shot entirely on location, right? That is an actual house in London, those are actual care homes, and so on?<\/p>\n

\n\tYes, the special thing about this film was that we had two full weeks of rehearsals before we started. In the house and other locations where we shot. All the social and health care workers in the film are real people, they are acting their actual jobs. So we asked them a lot of questions and they gave us a lot of information. We went to every single place where we needed to shoot.<\/p>\n

\n\tLance\u2019s way of dealing with rehearsals and the shooting was very accurate. He really wanted to be precise and truthful. And he had to adapt his script, because what he wrote it with the U.S. health care system in mind and the English system is very different.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat was it like working with Tom Courtney and Anna Calder-Marshall, who plays your mum?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was a joy. We\u2019d have our lunches together. We\u2019d stay alone in the house, when everyone else would go away for lunch at catering, and we\u2019d talk. I knew Tom because I had seen a film with him, 45 Years (2015)a while back, so I was aware of him. Though I hadn\u2019t seen his great body of work in the theater, where he has an enormous presence. Anna and I both played in Wuthering Heights movies, so we giggled about that and exchanged stories. She shot her film [directed by Robert Fuest and co-starring Timothy Dalton] in the 1970s and mine was, oh I can\u2019t remember, sometime in the late 80s [Peter Kosminsky\u2019s version, co-starring Ralph Fiennes, was released in 1992].<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t(L to R): Florence Hunt, Juliette Binoche in \u2018Queen at Sea\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t@Seafaring<\/p>\n

\n\tWere you aware of Florence Hunt, who plays your daughter, before the film?<\/p>\n

\n\tNo, I didn\u2019t know her before. What I felt with Florence was she\u2019s an actress with a very genuine way of being. There was no trying to prove something or forcing something. It was beautiful to watch. Also, her relationship in the film with her boyfriend. Lance really wanted to shoot that differently, to draw out the differences between that relationship and that of Tom and Anna\u2019s. With all of the actors, despite their different styles, it was always about being truthful in the moment. That\u2019s something that never changed.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019re the president of the European Film Academy. This film was a U.S.-U.K. Co-production and even though it\u2019s directed by an American, it feels very European. I can\u2019t imagine a film like this being made in the U.S. studio system.<\/p>\n

\n\tMaking arthouse films, creating art in cinema, is always difficult because you have to have courage, you have to be patient, and you have to fight. You have to believe, and to convince others, that this film needs to exist in the world. There\u2019s an element of resistance that is very important.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor bigger films, in the studio system, because you need to get your money back, people take fewer risks. Then there is the whole factory of people \u2014 those who do the special effects, who have a very specific way of shooting. It\u2019s a different world.<\/p>\n

\n\tI admire Lance, because he mainly produces himself. He chose the places he wanted to shoot and the set design. He decided, with the DP, where to put the camera and how to move it. You felt that every detail was essential. It was so important to him. He rehearsed everything before we shot. So while there\u2019s a danger in the story, in the themes maybe, at the same time, he\u2019s very controlled, very exact. I think he wanted something fragile in the acting, the feeling that at any moment, these people could break.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tTom Courtenay and Anna Calder-Marshall in \u2018Queen at Sea\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t@seafaring<\/p>\n

\n\tEuropean cinema is having a bit of a moment. At the Oscars this year, you have European films nominated across almost every category, films as radically different as Joachim Trier\u2019s Norwegian melodrama Sentimental Value, Yorgos Lanthimos\u2019s paranoid sci-fi satire Bugonia and Jafar Panahi\u2019s Iranian-French thriller It Was Just an Accident.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe strength of the European cinema, I think, is in uniting our differences. I was the president of the Cannes festival jury last year. Most of the films we awarded prizes to were European \u2014 Sentimental Value, Sirat, It Was Just an Accident, Sound of Falling \u2014 and you can see how different they are. You can\u2019t say one is better than the other, because they\u2019re so different. They are all expressions of an internal vision with a lot of people working together with love and care and need and fire.<\/p>\n

\n\tI have the wonderful hope that European cinema will get more recognition, that the European Film Academy and the European Film Awards<\/a> will get more attention. In France, for example, the awards aren\u2019t well known yet. Probably that\u2019s why the European Film Academy chose me to be president, to shake the French tree a bit, to make people aware of what\u2019s happening in Europe.<\/p>\n

\n\tBecause I feel Europe is important. Given what\u2019s happening, politically, in the world, Europe is becoming even more important. And cinema is a symbol of Europe of how we can unite through differences. That\u2019s huge and it\u2019s key. With everyone retreating into their own egotism, Europe has to show we can grow together because of our differences. I think that\u2019s very symbolic. And very powerful.<\/p>\n

\n\tRobert de Niro said something in a speech. I\u2019m going to mix up the exact words, but he said the difference between actors and politicians is that actors try to say the truth and politicians lie. That made me feel good. Because as actors, as filmmakers, we don\u2019t always succeed, but at least we are trying to be truthful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Juliette Binoche has spent four decades embodying the restless intelligence of French and European cinema, moving effortlessly between…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9388,56891,56892,56893,51923,4883,56894,9,24,63,122,124,123,56895],"class_list":{"0":"post-133197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-berlin","9":"tag-berlin-film-festival","10":"tag-berlin-film-festival-2026","11":"tag-berlinale-2026","12":"tag-bridgerton","13":"tag-international","14":"tag-juliette-binoche","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-queens","19":"tag-queens-headlines","20":"tag-queens-news","21":"tag-wuthering-heights"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}