Forgotten on Sunday

Perrin (Water for Flowers) offers a lively if overwrought dual narrative involving a nursing assistant and a resident at a nursing home in rural France. Justine Neige, 21, “love[s] two things in life: music and the elderly.” Deriving great satisfaction from her work at the nursing home, she takes unpaid overtime to provide the residents with additional care. Justine is especially drawn to Helene Hel, 96, who gradually reveals the tragic story of her lover’s disappearance during WWII, which Justine diligently records in a blue notebook. Justine has her own sorrowful history: her parents, aunt, and uncle died in a mysterious car accident when she was five. As Perrin fills in the details of the women’s stories, other questions arise in the present-day timeline: who is the man Justine regularly sleeps with, whose name she doesn’t bother to learn? And who is placing calls to the relatives of unvisited nursing home residents—those “forgotten on Sunday”—falsely informing them that the residents have died? What begins as a lighthearted feel-good story becomes unwieldy and melodramatic as Justine pieces together the answers to her questions about Helene’s life, the reasons behind her family’s fatal accident, and the phone caller’s motives. This one doesn’t quite gel. (June)