“Today is the first day of the rest of your life? Well, that’s true of every day but one – the day you die." These fatalistic words spoken by Kevin Spacey’s Lester Burnham in American Beauty were the inspiration for the title of writer and director Rémi Bezançon’s second feature. Zooming in on five key days that have shaped each member of the Duval family’s life, Bezançon provides a bittersweet portrait of their dysfunctional relationship – and how one day has affected their emotional trajectories, both individually and in the context of the family ensemble. Beginning in 1988, on the day eldest son Albert leaves home, the film spans 12 years, touching on four other significant dates across the 1990s – and ending momentously in the year 2000. Each day is led by a certain member of the family, presented subjectively to portray the thoughts and feelings of this one character amid the chaos of their family life. Where wide angles accentuate pragmatic doctor Albert’s distance, his grungy adolescent sister Fleur is closely-lensed and enclosed in her world of inner turmoil. Slow-motion and flashbacks personify their idle dreamer brother Raphael, and long lenses create intimacy and closeness around their mother, establishing her as the nerve centre of the household. Calm, soft colours and stillness emanate from the portrait of the father’s day to sensitively denote his passive, mellow nature. Bound together by an era-defining soundtrack and intelligent editing, this is a sharp and moving homage to family life and the memories it creates and harbours. The alternative late-80s and 90s soundtrack layers the nostalgia, providing a shrewd complement to the Duvals' unconventional relationships with one another. In a similarly evocative fashion, editor Sophie Reine compresses time and buoys the viewer through each significant moment in the same way one might wistfully flick through a photo album. Using a kaleidoscopic multi-character approach, Bezançon uniquely demonstrates how the family unit shapes us as individuals and, in doing so, he provides a refreshing view of issues such as growing up, loss of virginity, parenthood, infidelity and bereavement. In studying the unique responses of each family member to discrete moments in their collective and personal histories, The First Day of the Rest of Your Life delivers a highly entertaining, perceptive and energetic portrait of how just one single day can irrevocably alter the course of one's life.