La Jeune fille et les loups (2008) - film review

Since childhood, Angèle has had an affinity with the animal kingdom.  In 1918, aged twenty, she makes the decision to become a vet, even though the profession has so far excluded women practitioners.  One day, she finds herself lost and injured in open countryside, and it is wolves, not men, who come to her aid.  The wolves belong to Giuseppe, a recluse who lives alone in the mountains and who is as wary of other men as the animals he has vowed to protect.  Angèle later discovers that the mayor of her town, an opportunistic industrialist named Emile Garcin, intends to eradicate the wolves to make the region more attractive to tourists.  To save the animals, Angèle is prepared to do anything, even exploiting Garcin’s amorous intentions for her...

Gilles Legrand’s second full length film has pretty well the same strengths and weaknesses of his first, Malabar Princess (2004).  Both are family-friendly dramas which are set in picturesque rural France and explore man’s dual-edged relationship with the natural world.  However, both films suffer from a staid, overly cautious approach to filmmaking that robs the film of any true meaning or sentiment.  Whilst the film’s naive style may make it attractive to youngsters, it is less likely to appeal to adult viewers, particularly those who expect greater narrative sophistication than a child’s nativity play can offer.     

La Jeune fille et les loups is an attractively shot film with some commendable performances – notably from Laetitia Casta and Stefano Accorsi – but somehow hardly any of it rings true.  To its credit, the film never quite sinks to the depths of abject over-sentimentality, yet it still manages to have a deficit of sincerity and emotional truth.  The characters are well-drawn and convincingly played, but it is hard to engage with them and feel any sympathy with their plight.  It’s a kind of "painting-by-numbers" film – technically it is perfectly sound, but it just feels soulless, lacking that vital spark that it needs to make an impact and justify the purchase of a cinema ticket.

© James Travers 2008

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