French Film Festival 2025
This latest film from young French director Nathan Ambrosioni opens innocuously enough with shots of two children, nine year old Gaspard (Manoã Varvat) and six year old Margaux (Nina Birman), waiting for their Mum, Suzanne (Juliette Armanet), in the back seat of their car at a garage. They are on a journey to make an unannounced visit to Suzanne’s older sister, Jeanne (Camille Cottin) who is pretty much a stranger to the children as the sisters have lived different lives and not kept close contact. After their first slightly awkward meal together and tentative steps towards each other by the sisters, the four settle down for the night. But in the morning, Jeanne, who is coming to terms with the end of a medium-term lesbian relationship that ended because of her not wanting to have children in her life, finds that Suzanne has gone, leaving her with not just a note and her keys, but with her children.
Her departure does not fit with a missing person profile, as Jeanne learns from rule bound policeman (Guillaume Gouix) whose humanity in time turns him to an ally, but also learns about her sister’s chaotic life that is in sharp contrast to her own orderly and comfortable one. Despite having moved on, Jeanne’s ex Nicole (Monia Chokri) supports her with childcare while she navigates French bureaucracy so she steps into the new life that’s been imposed on her.
In this slow gentle film that observes the complexities of the children’s parental rights particularly under French law, Ambrosioni exposes a real human drama in a remarkably low key way as he shows the impact of an unusual set of circumstances not sought by the main players but one that exposes the possibility of human decency in challenging circumstances.
Camille Cottin gives an unsurprisingly strong and dignified performance as a woman whose life has been turned upside down on so many levels but all credit goes to the two young actors, particularly Manoã Varvat whose character Gaspard heartbreakingly carries the guilt and insightful logic of his mother’s disappearance.
A thread running through this moving film is the question around voluntary leaving and the question of whether the impact of a death and of someone leaving amount to same. The sisters’ father, played by Féodor Atkine, is in care, confused and in denial, but also conflates the idea of leaving home at a natural stage of life and running away.
Discreet piano notes from Alexandre de la Baum add to this quietly affecting film that leaves a realistic uncertainty with the viewer. While the obvious conclusion is that Jeanne takes on the responsibility of her niece and nephew out of love, the question that hangs is ultimately whether Suzanne left the children in their best interests and so also out of love.
Edinburgh Screening: Filmhouse on 30th November @ 6pm
Irene Brown
Radio Summerhall Arts 