Rosine uses her youth and sexuality as a lure with her older university professor, Etienne, who is hoping to have a relationship with the younger student.

Both independent plans come to their conclusion at the wedding of Isabelle's daughter, when Rosine's professor shows more interest in another youthful woman from the school.

Magali meets Gerald at the wine table and they instantly create a bond discussing their Northern African experiences and lives in the winery business.

Thematically also representative of advancing age, where middle-aged adults are approaching the second half of their lives with a balance of romanticism, pragmatism and ambition.

Rohmer uses Rosine's ambitious and naïve assumptions and compares it to the older Isabelle's practicality and softer approach to find the right person for Magali.

Encounters in cars, cafés, gardens and restaurants are visually dramatised, allowing the characters' philosophies (the action of the film, as it were) to be expressed dynamically.

"[4] Roger Ebert gave the film four stars out of four, saying "Even though I enjoy Hollywood romantic comedies like Notting Hill, it's like they wear galoshes compared to the sly wit of a movie like Autumn Tale.