“LEAVE ONE DAY,” a bittersweet musical film about “the one that got away,” opened this 78th Cannes Festival. Cécile (singer Juliette Armanet) was poised to fulfill a lifelong dream by opening a gastronomic restaurant in Paris when her father had a heart attack. She’s forced to go back home to spend time with him, helping in her parents’ restaurant, a pit stop affair that serves French cooking to truckers. Their relationship is tenuous, and her father resents her for leaving her birthplace for the capital.
Already in a romantic relationship with her restaurant associate in Paris, while in the village Cécile runs into a high-school friend, the incredibly charismatic and attractive Raphaël (played by Bastien Bouillon), and flirts with the idea of becoming involved with him—for real, this time. (Cécile was his high-school crush; it is revealed soon that he never got over her.)

Many of the scenes seamlessly break into dance numbers set to original but revisited French top forty songs whose lyrics everyone in France will know, and others, elsewhere, will hopefully vibe to a little. I very much enjoyed this film; it’s sad and funny, there’s music, and the main character, Cécile, stole my heart with her coy smile and ability to show loads of emotions. Juliette Armanet, the actress who plays Cécile, is a highly popular singer in France, who reminds one of Mylene Farmer and Celine Dion.

The opening film at Cannes has often been a blockbuster: “THE GREAT GATSBY” in 2013 and “FURY ROAD: FAST AND FURIOUS” more recently. Name auteurs have also appeared in this high-pressure slot: Woody Allen did so in 2013 for “CAFÉ SOCIETY,” and Wong Kar-Wai’s “MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS” was shown on opening day in 2007.

That “LEAVE ONE DAY” (“PARTIR UN JOUR”) was the opening movie this year is a novelty. It’s a French film by an unknown director with popular French music whose lyrics only people in France will know, and by heart. It’s also a movie by a woman director, only the fourth in the opening film slot in the festival’s history.