On 2020 on Netflix after premiering at Cannes the year before Posted, An easy-going girl is an under-the-radar treat – set in the south of France – times The film is so sweetly tactile and perceptive, it feels like a classic when the end credits start to roll. Writer-director Rebecca Zlotowski returns with a more traditional but equally award-winning work in Venice Competition Other People’s Children (Les enfants des autres) , attests to her talent for infusing familiar recipes with freshness and glamour, cleverness and sensuality.
by the superb Virginie Efira (Benedetta
Anchor ) as a ‘s high school teacher’s bond with her boyfriend’s daughter awakens the intricacies of maternal longings and middle-aged frustrations, and the film has the typical contours of contemporary Parisian romances: handsome hugs, conversations, smoking, wine tasting, casual chic soirees, hugs More set against the backdrop of the gleaming Eiffel Tower and other lovely cities of lights.
Someone else’s child
BOTTOM LINE Wise and successful.
Place: ) Venice Film Festival (competition)
actor:Virginie Efira, Roschy Zem, Chiara Mastroianni, Callie Ferreira Goncalves, Yamée Couture, Henri-Noël Tabary, Victor Lefebvre, Michel Zlotowski
Director/Screenwriter: Rebecca Zlotowski 1 hour43 minute
Despite being quintessentially French, Zlotowski’s touchstone is American : Kramer vs. Kramer and Unmarried Woman are the most obvious influences – Movie vs. Other People’s Children shares its appealing blend of accessibility and sophistication, as well as its convincingly reliable craftsmanship. While undoubtedly her most mainstream endeavor to date – the film doesn’t aspire to Dear Prudence and Grand Central Moody atmosphere and lack of subversive undercurrent of an Easy Girl (as for Planetarium, the less the better) – it was never pipeline universal: Zlotowski shades within the lines here, but there are plenty of Nuance and feel.
likes an easy girl, someone else’s child considers And challenged, women often find themselves pushed into categories where they face pressure to make certain choices or meet certain expectations. Such a thematic interest is what Zlotowski has in common with several other French female filmmakers ——1235009267Mia Hansen-Love, Audrey Diwan and Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet of which – currently dusting off their national films, tackling stale genres with new vigour, tweaking tropes and traditions.
Let’s save from meeting-cute,Other People’s Children starts with Rachel (Efira) already with Ali (Roschdy Zem) texted Ali (Roschdy Zem), an auto designer she met from the guitar lessons they both took. With the heroine running around the city (using Vivaldi’s Mandolin Concerto in C major is straight Kramer to Kramer quote), an impromptu date with Ali, and a lighthearted joke about Chinese food after Rosh Hashanah with her sister (Yamée Couture) and father (Michel Zlotowski), the opening scene puts the audience in a comforting A modern urban romantic comedy in a visual and narrative setting. In the next minutes, this movie will prove to be better than those Hint harder, wiser, and that classification, would suggest.
Rachel and Ali quickly fall in love with each other. Zlotowski didn’t portray Efira’s nude scene – did I mention it’s a French film? – but kept her cheekiest (no pun intended), most intentional stare at Zem: After spending her first night at Ali’s apartment, Rachel sat in the bathroom watching her new boyfriend take a shower, The camera hovered over him as he froze. “Just admiring you,” Rachel said, not embarrassed. Got it, girl.
The only obstacle to the couple’s happiness comes from 4-year-old daughter Ali’s adorable form of Leila (the delightful natural Callie Ferreira Goncalves) with his ex Alice (Chiara Mastroianni) ,excellent). Ali prefers to keep things simple and separate, but when Rachel insists on seeing Layla – who loves Ali and wants to fully share his life – he agrees. A new family structure emerged, and its participants adapted to modified roles and routines. Rachel gets closer and closer to Lyra, woos her with candy, takes her from judo, and bravely accepts the title “stepmother.” She develops a cordial relationship with Alice and sensitively navigates standard push/pull love and rejection with Lyra. So far, so good.
Zlotowski expands on her story, gently deepening the sunny mood of the sitcom with subplots and sub-characters: one of Alice’s cancer-stricken friends ( Anne Berrest); a young colleague who misses Rachel (Henri-Noël Tabary); a troubled student (Victor Lefebvre); Rachel’s sister gets pregnant unexpectedly. (Rachel being Jewish and Ali being Arab is not a problem at all, which is both refreshing and a bit utopian given the tensions in French society.)
And then Rachel’s feeling of owning her own child, which Zlotowski paints as not hopeless, but fluid — oscillating between intense longing, ambivalence and fear of missing out on what Rachel calls a “collective experience” of motherhood. Adding a level of urgency is Rachel’s gynecologist, played by incomparable documentarian Frederick Wiseman (!), who reminds her that “the clock is ticking”.
Other people’s children The rhythm is lively, the script is tightly structured, the ellipses and scenes are used very cleverly. Observe that you forgive occasionally Falling into clichés (how about pausing for sudden car crashes and characters panicking for ostensibly lost kids?). The plot twists and character shifts feel more organic than procedural; Zlotowski carefully considers who these people are and how their histories affect how they act and react.
The filmmaker’s mastery of tone is most evident in the second half of the film, when she penetrates the cheerful atmosphere with a note of cringe pain. The fleeting moments that serve as fillers in a smaller film seem to contain a lifetime of complex, contradictory emotions: for example, the tears Rachel and her sister shared at the birth of the latter’s child were joyous, But it also carries sadness and a hint of guilt from the past.
A blond beauty with a warm, velvety laugh, Efira does her best as a woman, with the usual Parisian narcissists and neuroses Than, is an example of selflessness. (“Now I’m ashamed,” she says when she finds herself venting her frustrations to Ali at one point.) Indeed, Rachel put others first—especially Ali and Laila. But she’s not flippant, and proving that decency is just as fun on screen as dysfunction, Efira directs strength and passion to Rachel’s kindness: she delivers a low-key speech while defending a troubled student at a faculty meeting, And when she feels like the perennial “extra” in Ali and Laila’s life, she confronts him.
Efira gradually uncovers Rachel’s layers, revealing a painful longing in her radiance. (Her rejection of a sincere potential suitor’s kiss—the tenderest rejection imaginable—is worth watching.) Believable chemistry.
Such as relaxed girl , other people’s children lively*), it seems, at the expense of depth. Instead of pulling you into Rachel’s trenches, Zlotowski observes her with clear eyes, cool sympathy, and a deft detachment. Key developments – first kiss, painful breakup – were discreetly filmed. Dramatic classical music and choreographed gestures – Rachel’s and Ali’s intertwined hands slowly raised to Ali’s lips – turn an otherwise boring or banal moment into a flash of elegance. The tricks are like iris shots that open and close certain scenes, framing other people’s children like a story being told, a kind of fairy tale or fable, not Any attempt at immersive realism or visceral intimacy.
Despite the easily recognizable beats of this movie, Rachel doesn’t quite get where you think she’s going, or where you might want her to be. The moving epilogue projects the protagonist’s journey in a slightly different way, as if urging the audience to question their ideas of what a happy ending is. Other People’s Children is ultimately about the kinds of things that can give meaning to life — or, perhaps more accurately, the concept that things can give meaning to life — rather than any single thing. Rachel is open to the world and its possibilities, but she doesn’t chase or cling to them unconditionally. Like the movies she’s been in, she’s happy with herself, and it’s getting better.
