REVIEW 071hen a bad mother approaches old age and
enters the phase of life where one spends
more time cataloguing memories than
creating new ones, she is faced with a choice. She
can reckon with the legacy of negligence she’s left
behind, that of infidelity and absentee parenting and
recreational cruelty in the guise of tough love. Or she
can do what Catherine Deneuve’s declining screen
queen Fabienne does in the latest from Hirokazu
Koreeda (the director’s first outside of his native
Japan), and retreat into self-spun fictions, revising her
history into a more flattering version of itself.
Fabienne is a dyed-in-the-wool actress set in a
cheekily Deneuvian mould. She approaches penning
her memoirs as if she’s creating the role of a lifetime.
The passages recalling afternoons spent picking up
her smiling daughter from school stick in the craw
of the now-adult Lumir (Juliette Binoche), who
remembers things going down a bit differently.
The film begins as she and her family (charismatic
alcoholic husband Ethan Hawke and moppet
daughter Clémentine Grenier) join Fabienne at her
home in the shadow of a looming, bluntly symbolic
prison complex to commemorate the release of
this book. Yet she brings with her an in-depth line
edit, complete with Post-It notes marking the most
objectionable selections. The time has come to shake
the branches of the family tree.
Koreeda gives this process a symbolic counterpoint
in Fabienne’s supposed comeback, on a sci-fi drama
that casts her as daughter to a hot young It girl (Manon
Clavel) rendered ageless by outer space. Fabienne
and Lumir sort through resentments and regretsin discursive conversations with a palpable sense
of Frenchness uncommon for a visiting filmmaker.
They snipe and micro-aggress like sparring partners
with an intimate knowledge of one another’s weak
points, an inappropriately fluffy score passing off
this mature battle of wills as one of those talky Gallic
dramedies. Subplots involving the precocious-yet-not-
too-precocious youngster and Fabienne’s ex-husband
(Roger Van Hool) ultimately weigh the film down by
making it lighter.
Koreeda’s technique, honed and perfected over the
past few years with After the Storm and the Cannes-
winning Shoplifters, involves sucker-punching viewers
in the final half-an-hour with emotional stakes
ratcheted up to a newly intense register. He does the
same here, as Fabienne grapples with the harsh light
of self-awareness. Watching her obstinate haughtiness
crumble in the face of the time she has left on Earth
borders on the devastating, especially to those familiar
with Deneuve’s career trajectory.
Foreign auteurs often go astray as they make
their way to the West, and it’s a relief that Koreeda’s
approach to delicate family dynamics transcends the
language barrier. The building blocks of his oeuvre –
compassion, vulnerability, connection once hardened
guards have been let down – have been smartly fitted
to suit the sui generis talents of the film’s headlining
legends, playing up their spikier wits. But even those
defences fall and give way to the heart-piercing truth
at the centre of both Koreeda’s filmography and
the bond between two warring, loving women: the
people closest to us are worth the pain they cause.
CHARLES BRAMESCODirected by
HIROKAZU KOREEDA
Starring
CATHERINE DENEUVE
JULIETTE BINOCHE
ETHAN HAWKE
Released
20 MARCH
ANTICIPATION.
Hot off a Palme win, trying his
hand with a Western cast –
all eyes are on Koreeda.
ENJOYMENT.
Like Deneuve’s tea, it’s warm until
it’s suddenly scalding.
IN RETROSPECT.
Hardly anything’s been lost in
translation.
The Truth
W