Maiwenn's movie is a confusing work;at its best it depicts,without embellishment and with a natural feeling for economy and sparseness with precludes all forms of conventional sentimentality, a family ,the future family of the baby of an expectant woman ;at its worst ,it's navel-gazing and I-me-mine ,complete with shrink ,a world in which the heroine forgets that the others live too .
The heroine buys a movie camera ("not a big one,cause I do not want them to take it seriously,I want them to "act naturally" )and begins to film her relatives to introduce them to her soon-to-be-born child .Not exactly a family photo album,a settlement of scores ,more like...
Some scenes are impressive : Violette ,beating to death a doll, reminding her dad (a straight-faced Pascal Gregory)of his sadism when she was a little girl ;the birthday party and the unexpected guest .The shots in black and white,filmed by the heroine, a trick which has been too often used lately ,may seem tiresome in the long run.
Some scenes much less so: when Violette asks her partner to marry her,we are not that much far from the "Un Gars Une Fille" series(which I love) ,even the false wedding would not be out of place in it.The "happy end" a la "and they lived happily ever after " is not very convincing either.
Only time will tell if this movie is really a sleeper;watch it anyway:its several incredible moments are worth the price of admission.
NB : the song "Trois Petites Notes De Musique "(1961) was stolen from Colpi's "Une Aussi Longue Absence ";the connection escapes me,I fear.....(music by Georges Delerue)
