Overlooking a little cove near Marseille lies a picturesque villa owned by an old man, Maurice (Fred Ulysse), who just suffered an irreversible stroke that left him incapacitated. His three children gather by his side to decide what to do with him, and the beautiful house he and his friends had so proudly built. There is the estranged daughter Angèle (Ariane Ascaride, Gué́diguian’s wife, here collaborating with her husband for the 19th time), a successful actress living in Paris; the cynical Joseph (Jean-Pierre Darroussin), recently unemployed and on the verge of a breakup with his much younger girlfriend, Bérangère (Anaïs Demoustier); and the dutiful Armand (Gérard Meylan), the only one who stayed in town to run the family’s small restaurant. It is time for them to weigh up what they have inherited of their father’s ideals and the community spirit he created in this magical place.

The chemistry between the three leads, all part of Guédiguian’s longtime screen family, is effortless and is given lovely texture by a flashback scene, lifted from Gué́́diguian’s own 1985 film Ki Lo Sa? of the three of them as young people laughing on a day trip to the coast while Bob Dylan’s “I Want You” plays.

Added into the mix are new love interests, for Angèle in the form of young fisherman Benjamin (Robinson Stévenin, another Guédiguian regular), and for Bérangère in the shape of Yvan (Yann Trégouët), the son of Martin (Jacques Boudet) and Suzanne (Geneviève Mnich), the aged couple who are Maurice’s only remaining neighbors.

With The House by the Sea, Guédiguian (a regular of the SFFF, from The Town is Quiet, part of our orignal line-up in 2002, to most recently Don't tell Me the Boy Was Mad - SFFF 2016) tells one of his favorite stories: a group of everyday people trying to get by as they grapple with whatever life has thrown their way, reminiscing about the past, anxious about the present, and dreaming about the future...