Coming Home

The girl Gaëlle Faroult is kidnapped at school when she is about eight by Vincent Maillard (Reda Kateb) that imprisons her at the basement of his isolated house but provides everything she needs. Along the years, Gaëlle (Agathe Bonitzer) unsuccessfully tries to escape. But when she is seventeen, Vincent surprisingly let her go. Now Gaëlle has problems to adapt to her family and the outside world.

"À moi seule" is one of those films with a promising storyline with great potential, telling the story of a girl that is kidnapped at school when she is about eight and the difficulties of adaptation to her family when she is finally released by the kidnapper when she is a seventeen year-old teenager. The storyline of the recent and awarded "Room" (2015) has many elements from "À moi seule", but with an excellent screenplay. Unfortunately the promising storyline is wasted in poor and messy screenplay, edition and characters development. The first question about "À moi seule" is why the lonely Vincent kidnapped Gaëlle? His motives are never clear. Did he intend to raise a child expecting the connection of "Stockholm Syndrome" when she reaches adulthood? If yes, it does not make any sense the whole story. The second point is who is Vincent and Gaëlle's parents? The screenplay shows points of their relationship in a shallow way only. Last but not the least, a non-linear screenplay shall be very well-written to let the viewer understand events from the past that are affecting the character in the present. However the flashbacks are confused and the viewer does not immediately understand that it is a flashback scene. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "De Volta Para Casa" ("Back Home")