All to Play For

So here's a question. Imagine you live in a flat and one of your fellow residents has a job that works late into the evening whilst her two sons are at home on their own. "Jean-Jacques" (Félix Lefebvre) is the older and "Sofiane" (Alex Tonetti) is the younger with a penchant for chips/fries at 3am. When he has an incident with the hot oil that necessitates his brother taking him, in a shopping trolley, to hospital and the authorities decide maybe he is better in care what would you think? Never mind the issues around responsible parenting. What about the risks to the other folks living there who might well wake up amidst the ruins of their possessions, if they wake up at all? Returning mother "Sylvie" (Virginie Efira) couldn't care less about us, indeed as this drama unfolds it appears that she couldn't really care much for anyone as her struggles to get her young "Froggy" back become all consuming. I couldn't help but wonder that, given her circumstances, maybe the lad was in a better place and we were all just that extra bit safer at night! That distraction rather pointed out to me just how one-dimensional this story was. We are clearly being encouraged to feel sorry for "Sylvie" and to take against a system this is portrayed as thoroughly unsympathetic, understaffed, and not even vaguely inclined to the welfare of the young "Sofiane". I hate feeling manipulated by a film and so despite a really strong and passionate effort from Efira, an equally solid and perceptive one from Arieh Worthalter as the estranged dad "Hervé" and from Lefebvre as the "other" son, I just thought the whole thing did an outrageous disservice to professional people trying their best to juggle plates whilst underfunded, under-resourced and under-acknowledged. Certainly, it does shine quite a light on the visceral nature of the relationship between mother and younger son, but it relies far too heavily on that innateness within the audience and doesn't really build any of the characters beyond the hysterical and reactionary to earn our respect. There are way better films out there dealing more fully with this scenario and the fanciful denouement here rather summed up the whole film.

This first narrative feature from veteran documentarian Delphine Deloget fires on all 8 cylinders. Clearly the voice and hand of a mature storyteller.

The highest compliment I can pay the film is that while I enjoyed seeing it in competition at Cannes, I enjoyed it even more viewing it a second time at the NYC premiere.

We're sure to see more of this French writer/director's socially conscious narrative work in the future.

Virginie Efira's performance here combines power and nuance and even draws a bit from her beginnings in comedy. The quiet whispers exchanged between her and her youngest son, provide authentic intimate moments rarely seen on screen.

Interestingly, the director discussed her choice to not include non-diagetic music in the soundtrack leaving the actors words to convey the emotion, clearly informed by her documentary aesthetic.