It was first the title of this film that intrigued me - in English "I'm Glad That My Mother Is Alive" - . I've never been a huge fan of Claude Miller - I liked L'Effrontée above all, but simply hated Little Lili, which I found was empty of content and boring. However, I must say that this film is a real discovery, profound, human and moving. Vincent Rottiers, who was nominated for a Best Newcomer (Male) at the Césars last year for it, is impressive and so disarming that he left me open-mouthed in surprise.
Thomas goes on summer vacation with his parents and brother. While in the water, he asks his father what his mother looks like. The later answers that he has no idea. Thomas is an adopted kid, and so is his brother. Their mother abandoned them when they were kids. But when Thomas reaches his twenties, he finds her and starts building a weird (AC will like the fact that I'm using this word... again) relationship with her. Has he forgiven her.. or is it only an illusion hiding some much deeper feelings?
A fantastic film about troubled youth, about adoption, about anger, about love and about desire.
Its construction is a bit confusing - flash backs between different times in the past & present -, but it's so true and intimate that it simply leaves you fulfill and happy to see that such films are still made and possible to make.
Always been a fan of this kind ok books/ movies - I read and watched Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice about a hundred times - so I HAD TO go see this one. Mia Wasikowska had gained my sympathy in "The Kids Are Alright", but I really disliked Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland. However, I have to give her some credit: she is simply extra-ordinary in this adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's masterpiece.
Everyone knows the story of Jane Eyre : an orphan abandoned by her aunt as a kid, who grew up in a boarding school full a sadomasochistic people and ended up as a tutor in the - haunted - house of a gorgeous, crazy, romantic and eccentric single dad. What happens next? Either you've read the book or seen one of the many films made before this one, or you'll have to go see it, because it is really worth it.
Energetic, gothic, aesthetically perfect, this film is a true delight. The director, Cari Jogi Fukunaga, is the one of "Sin Nombre" and the screenwriter worked on "Tamara Drew" script before this one - a pretty heavy team, you can tell. It's emotional, full of suspense at time, wild and romantic: all the qualities you're looking for in this kind of" period piece" film.
You can feel Jane Eyre's passion and rage, her desire of freedom and attention, her love for the (very hot) Mr. Rochester - played by the absolutely gorgeous Michael Fassbender who does an amazing job here, restoring the cynical, tortured but charismatic male character of this novel. One of the "must see's" of the season. For sure.
MJ.
