You did your best

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's top 50 films of 2023

#49 :  Un Petit Frère (Mother And Son)

A son reflects on the struggles he faced with his brother and wayward mother after they moved to France from Ivory Coast, in a meditative coming-of-age story.

The Guardian does like a French film - they very much have a type and I'm sure it will be very worthy and probably very dull.  Yes, I'm being harsh, but I'll be surprised if it doesn't feature mental health issues, extreme poverty or an abortion.  Oh well, it's not like there's nearly two hours of it - oh, hang on...

The films follows Rose, a single mother and her two sons, Jean and Ernest, who have recently moved to France.  The first third of the film focuses on Rose, the middle third skips forward 5(?) years and focuses on Jean, the elder boy, and the final year focuses on Ernest, the younger boy, first 3(?) years in the future and then a further 15(?) to see how things all turned out.  But, whilst quite a lot happens to the family over the 20 years, the vast majority of it happens off screen which doesn't make for the most fascinating of viewing.  It tends to focus more on the humdrum and mundane - cooking, cleaning and TERRIBLE dancing are all featured way more than is strictly necessary.  

To be fair, it does have a powerful final scene which did engage me, but not nearly as much as the film-makers would have wanted me to because they'd really burned up a lot of my goodwill by this point.  Under normal circumstances I would have given up way before the end and the fact that it was subtitled, so I could watch it at double speed, was very much appreciated.  It also, to its credit, does not feature an abortion.

I can't fault the acting though - Annabelle Lengronne as Rose does a great job (it's not her fault that her character is so annoying) and the various incarnations of Jean and Ernest are also well done, particularly Kenzo Sambin and Ahmed Sylla as the oldest versions of those characters.  

The general film style is interesting with the camera and the actors acting very naturally - it's like you're looking around a room and people walk into and disappear from view somewhat randomly.  I'm not sure it fully worked for me, but I guess it's what the director Léonor Serraille was looking for and I can't fault her for trying something slightly different.  There are also plenty of the obligatory shots of the Paris rooftops.

The film has a lot to recommend it but, unfortunately, plot was not one of those things and, for me, that lets it down badly.  Yes, there's an argument that it's an understated and sympathetic portrayal of a lifestyle I don't understand and/or can't relate to and I'm prepared to accept that, but that didn't stop me being thoroughly bored by the whole thing.  And if after that massive recommendation you fancy catching up with it, it's available to watch in a surprising number of places.

#50 - A really good film to start the list
#48 - Shows potential