After La Tour, Guillaume Nicloux returns with La Petite, a moving drama starring Fabrice Luchini, presented in competition at the Angoulême Film Festival. The film is scheduled for release on September 20.
In addition to Fabrice Luchini, the cast includes Mara Taquin(La Syndicaliste) and Maud Wyler(Toi non plus tu n'as vu) in a film that promises to be an adventure between France and Belgium. And once again, Guillaume Nicloux radically changes his style, after the war film Les Confins du Monde, the UFO Thalasso, the documentary Les Rois de l'Arnaque and the horror film La Tour.
Joseph learns that his son and his son's partner have died in an accident. They were expecting a child via a surrogate mother in Belgium. What will become of their future baby? Is Joseph the legitimate grandfather? Buoyed by the promise of a birth that will prolong his son's life, the sixty-year-old sets off to meet the young Flemish woman with her fierce, indomitable character...
Our verdict
Whether you're a fan of Guillaume Nicloux or Fabrice Luchini, La Petite will surprise you. It's a lovely family film from the director, the antithesis of his latest features. It's a moving drama about filiation and mourning, with a Luchini we've never seen like this before. Overwhelmed, bruised, mourning, blocked in his life, figuratively but also literally - his cervical spine aches - his fragility as an old man is touching, and the actor distances himself from his fantasies, leaving only emotion, and the hope of continuing his son's life through that of his granddaughter.
It's a tight story, short enough to avoid boredom, and gets straight to the point, which is just as well, because the film is fast-paced, unlike its protagonist, who is slow and sometimes clumsy, despite his enthusiasm for the idea of finding the young surrogate mother of his deceased son. This makes for a bold contrast, and the result is a film full of finesse and emotion.
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