An extremely captivating movie on how a little girl copes with her mother's death. She withdraws from all the people around her, waiting for her mother to come back. She tries waiting, and ... See full summary »
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Insightful look at an unattractive 7th grader as she struggles to cope with un-attentive parents, snobbish classmates, a smart older brother, an attractive younger sister, and her own insecurities.
Director:
Todd Solondz
Stars:
Heather Matarazzo,
Victoria Davis,
Christina Brucato
Five high school students, all different stereotypes, meet in detention, where they pour their hearts out to each other, and discover how they have a lot more in common than they thought.
An extremely captivating movie on how a little girl copes with her mother's death. She withdraws from all the people around her, waiting for her mother to come back. She tries waiting, and when her mother still doesn't appear, tries magic chants, praying to God, and then becoming a child of God, to have some power over Him. All to no avail. But then, when she is in despair, her mother does come back ... Written by
Rahul Dodhia <rdodhia@psych.columbia.edu>
The magic spell the kids say, "Ta'ali Takum", is actually the "Talitha koum" of Jesus. In Mark 5:41, Jesus says the phrase "Talitha koum" (Aramaic for "Little girl, get up") to a dead girl, when he resurrects her. See more »
Goofs
In the cemetery scene, Ponette is shown piling dirt onto her legs as she kneels beside the grave. In the next shot, her legs have no dirt and her pants are clean. See more »
Nobody watching this film can failed to be touched, moved, transported and transformed by it. Others here have already expressed the enormous power of the movie, and particularly of its star, Victoire Thivisol. If you're reading this to see if you should watch it, I'd say, drop everything and go buy it so you can watch it over and over. But buy a case of Kleenex (TM) too, you're going to need them!
As I watched the movie, I had the impression that director Jacques Doillon had simply found a real-life tragedy and somehow followed the participants through it with his camera. Nothing in this film gives you the impression of having been written, scripted, staged, produced. It is all so completely natural that you experience first hand the pain, the emotional agony of Ponette, as if she were your own daughter, your own sister, even your own self.
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Nobody watching this film can failed to be touched, moved, transported and transformed by it. Others here have already expressed the enormous power of the movie, and particularly of its star, Victoire Thivisol. If you're reading this to see if you should watch it, I'd say, drop everything and go buy it so you can watch it over and over. But buy a case of Kleenex (TM) too, you're going to need them!
As I watched the movie, I had the impression that director Jacques Doillon had simply found a real-life tragedy and somehow followed the participants through it with his camera. Nothing in this film gives you the impression of having been written, scripted, staged, produced. It is all so completely natural that you experience first hand the pain, the emotional agony of Ponette, as if she were your own daughter, your own sister, even your own self.