Advertisement
Become a member of the Big Issue community
JOIN
Film

Petite Maman review: 'Things get a little weird'

Petite Maman is a great film to see says Graeme Virtue

A scene from new film Petite Maman, in cinemas from November 19

Petite Maman is in cinemas from November 19

In the week that blockbuster sequel Ghostbusters: Afterlife attempts to create a connection between generations with some supernatural help, here is an understated French film on a similar theme. Petite Maman may not be an actual ghost story but there is definitely something étrange going on in its bucolic neighbourhood. The result is a mysterious but deeply moving meditation on mother-daughter relationships.  

It is all filtered through eight-year-old Nelly (Joséphine Sanz), a thoughtful young girl going through her first experience of bereavement after the recent passing of her grandmother. This loss has also unmoored Nelly’s mother Marion (Nina Meurisse), particularly after returning to the rural house she grew up in to have one last big clearout. 

For Nelly, her grandmother’s old-fashioned home and the rustic woods surrounding it are an instant playground, a place to mess around with some of her mum’s old toys and explore the undergrowth for pleasing pebbles. For her maman, it is a house overflowing with memories. She introduces Nelly to the bobbing branch that used to make her imagine shadow creatures lurking at the foot of her bed on dark nights. This rush of reminiscence ends up all being just a little too much for Marion and she departs, leaving her husband – an easygoing, beardy hipster played by Stéphane Varupenne – to complete the tidying up while keeping half an eye on Nelly. (In one particularly Gallic vignette, Dad gravely requests permission from his pensive daughter to enjoy an after-dinner cigarette out the kitchen window.) 

Then things get a little weird. Nelly meets a new playmate in the woods, a young girl who could be her mirror image (played by Gabrielle Sanz, Joséphine’s real-life twin). The two strike up an instant rapport, constructing a secret gang hut from saplings and string. Their physical resemblance is not the only instance of uncanny twinning; when Nelly’s new friend invites her home for a play date, it is essentially her grandmother’s house revisited. 

By this stage, even those who have fallen behind on their Duolingo language-learning app might have roughly translated the title and have an inkling as to what is going on. But rather than try to conjure up an explanation for the warp in space-time required to create these impossibly overlapping lives, Petite Maman seems more interested in exploring the emotional possibilities. 

This is writer/director Céline Sciamma’s follow-up to 2019’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, her poised period drama about the highly charged relationship between two women in 18th-century Brittany: one an Italian countess, the other a hired companion with a secret agenda. To go from that intense story to something so contemporary starring a pair of kids might seem like a major gear change. But Sciamma has previously coaxed wonderful performances from child actors in her films Tomboy (2011) and Water Lilies (2007). Here, the Sanz sisters are terrific. Their performances toggle from philosophically self-serious to plausibly goofy, all while seeming spontaneous. 

Advertisement
Advertisement

With only a handful of actors and a key location that is being systematically emptied of clutter there is a certain sparseness to the film. If this was partly caused by filming under Covid protocols, it has been elegantly folded into Sciamma’s vision. Despite being so earthy and grounded, it gives her film a sense of being slightly disconnected from reality. Petite Maman has the feeling of a beautifully composed modern fairy tale, complete with enchanted forest.

Petite Maman is in cinemas from November 19 

This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine. If you cannot reach your local vendor, you can still click HERE to subscribe to The Big Issue today or give a gift subscription to a friend or family member. You can also purchase one-off issues from The Big Issue Shop or The Big Issue app, available now from the App Store or Google Play.

Advertisement

Become a Big Issue member

3.8 million people in the UK live in extreme poverty. Turn your anger into action - become a Big Issue member and give us the power to take poverty to zero.

Recommended for you

View all
Joker: Folie à Deux says nothing meaningful about living with mental illness
Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck (aka Joker) and Lady Gaga as Harley ‘Lee’ Quinn in Folie à Deux
Film

Joker: Folie à Deux says nothing meaningful about living with mental illness

Actor Adam Pearson: 'I wake up every morning, let the universe kick my arse and then carry on'
Adam Pearson in A Different Man
Letter To My Younger Self

Actor Adam Pearson: 'I wake up every morning, let the universe kick my arse and then carry on'

Will Ferrell takes a crash course in trans advocacy in new Netflix doc Will & Harper
Will Ferrell and Harper Steele
Film

Will Ferrell takes a crash course in trans advocacy in new Netflix doc Will & Harper

My Old Ass review – a sweet and cathartic coming-of-ages movie with a twist
Elliott (Maisy Stella, left) with her 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza).
Film

My Old Ass review – a sweet and cathartic coming-of-ages movie with a twist

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know
4.

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know